Senior Software Engineer

About the role

We’re growing our Gloucester team and have several opportunities for Senior Software Engineers to work across our Defence, Cyber and Intelligence programmes.

You’ll help create and improve secure software systems and applications that safeguard digital infrastructure across the UK. You may already specialise in a particular area, or you may enjoy working across several parts of software development - either is welcome.

This is a senior role, so we’re looking for strong engineering practice, sound technical judgement and experience taking ownership of complex work. We don’t expect you to arrive knowing every technology we use; we welcome people with a passion for learning and continuous improvement.

The role

You’ll work alongside colleagues and our customers to understand complex needs and requirements, turning them into well-engineered technical solutions.

Depending on your strengths and interests, you could specialise in one area or contribute across several parts of the development lifecycle. Your work may include:

• Designing, building, testing, debugging and documenting software across its lifecycle.
• Investigating problems and improving the reliability, security and maintainability of our systems.
• Improving how software is built and delivered through infrastructure as code, CI/CD and test automation.
• Contributing your experience to technical decisions, reviews and collaborative problem-solving.
• Mentoring junior or new staff on project.

Learning and development

You’ll have access to internal training and development, education-assistance programmes and reimbursement for relevant professional memberships. We’ll help you build familiarity with our projects and technologies while giving you opportunities to deepen your existing strengths.

What we offer

Flexible working, including the option to work a four-day week with Fridays off, depending on business requirements.

Security clearance

This role requires you to be able to obtain and maintain eDV security clearance.

You don’t need to hold eDV clearance when you apply. If you don’t currently have it, we’ll support you through the application process.

Required skills, qualifications and experience

• Proven experience delivering software in a professional engineering environment.
• Confidence developing software in at least one modern language, such as Java, Python, C++, Go, Rust, JavaScript or TypeScript.
• Practical experience with Linux, Git and automated unit testing.
• The ability to work through technical trade-offs and explain your choices along the way to a mix of stakeholders.
• A collaborative approach and a dedication to continuous learning and team improvement.
• We want to hear about examples of how you’ve delivered complex software, exercised technical judgement and taken responsibility for the quality of your work.

Desired skills

• Cloud platforms, particularly AWS.
• Automated GitLab delivery pipelines and infrastructure as code.
• Microservices, serverless architectures and cloud migration.
• Relational and NoSQL databases, data integration and search technologies.
• Web and application frameworks such as React, Express and Next.js
• Tools including Gitlab, NiFi, Elasticsearch, Kibana, Jira and Confluence
• AI coding assistants, agentic coding and ML tooling

Experience in some of these areas is advantageous, but this is not a checklist, and we don’t expect one person to know them all. We’ll support you in learning new project-specific technologies, including opportunities to explore practical uses of AI within software development.

Professional certifications are welcome - we’d love to know what qualifications you can bring to the team - but they aren’t essential.