Senior Software Engineer - Application Engineering

uMed is on a mission to reduce barriers to knowledge creation in healthcare. Our clinical research network connects patients, electronic health data, and research groups, spanning 400+ GP sites across the UK and growing internationally. We're a focused team of people who care deeply about making medical research faster and more accessible. If that mission resonates with you, we'd love to hear from you.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Application Engineering team, a hands-on builder who takes real ownership of what they ship. You'll work end-to-end on features and initiatives, from design through to production, collaborating closely with our Data Engineering team who own the health data pipelines that power our platform. This is a dynamic, broad-reaching role for someone who thrives with autonomy. You'll be expected to lead initiatives technically, scoping, designing, building, and iterating, in a team where every contribution matters.

What you'll be doing:

• Building and improving features across the platform, with Python and Django at the core of our stack, while picking up other technologies as the platform and your work demands.
• Writing well-structured, testable, production-ready code and holding yourself to a high standard of quality.
• Collaborating with Data Engineering to understand platform capabilities and integrate effectively.
• Working closely with Product and Design in scrum ceremonies, backlog refinement, and technical discussions, contributing your perspective, not just your code.
• Participating in production support and incident management, debugging and resolving issues to keep our platform stable and performant.
• Documenting what you build, clearly and consistently.
• Helping define and evolve our backend engineering standards, staying current with the Python and Django ecosystem and bringing good ideas back to the team.

Requirements:

Essential:

• Strong Python and Django skills (or comparable Python web framework experience).
• Solid grasp of REST API design and SQL database modelling.
• Comfort with relational databases and a good instinct for data modelling.
• Solid experience with AWS, including containers and serverless technologies.
• Working knowledge of message queuing and stream processing.
• Experience with observability and CI/CD tooling such as Sentry, Datadog, or CircleCI.
• A track record of delivering well-designed backend features end-to-end, independently.
• Degree in computing or equivalent experience - we care more about what you've built than where you studied.

Nice to have:

• Experience with React and JavaScript/TypeScript.
• Experience working with or alongside data engineering workflows, including tools like Airflow.
• Experience with clinical or healthcare systems.

Who you are:

• A self-starter who doesn't wait to be told what to do next.
• Genuinely care about code quality, reusability, maintainability, and scalability.
• Excited by working in a small team where you wear several hats.
• Someone who empathises with users and keeps their needs at the centre of every technical decision.
• Motivated by the idea that the software you create could directly improve patient outcomes.

Benefits:

• Private Health Insurance to keep you covered.
• Pension Plan to help you secure your future.
• Plenty of Paid Time Off for your well-deserved breaks.
• Work From Home equipment budget for a comfortable working space.
• Flexible Benefits platform tailored to your needs.
• Enjoy your Birthday Day Off on us!
• Eye-test vouchers for Specsavers to look after your eyesight.
• Coworking policy – catch up with the team as regularly as once a week.