Security Reverse / Anti-Bot Engineer

Adthena; Greater London; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Adthena is seeking an Anti-Bot Engineer to design, build, and operate large-scale, resilient web scraping systems focused on Google and similar platforms. You will work at the intersection of data engineering, reverse engineering, and systems reliability to deliver accurate, timely data at scale.

Role involves addressing dynamic rendering, anti-automation measures, and high-volume data collection, with a culture of agentic coding and AI-assisted tooling. Remote-first with UK focus.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience scraping Google or similarly protected platforms.
• Strong knowledge of HTML parsing, DOM traversal, and data extraction techniques.
• Experience handling rate limiting, CAPTCHA, IP rotation, and bot detection systems.
• Comfortable working with asynchronous and concurrent scraping architectures.
• Experience running scrapers at scale in cloud environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain large-scale Python scraping systems that operate reliably against Google and other highly defended websites.
• Continuously adapt to changes in page structure, request flows, and anti-automation mechanisms.
• Engineer robust extraction pipelines that prioritise data accuracy, consistency, and observability.
• Implement proxy, fingerprinting, and request-routing strategies to maximise stability and throughput.
• Monitor scrape health, detect failures early, and rapidly debug production issues.
• Optimise performance, cost, and latency across scraping infrastructure.
• Work closely with data engineers, data scientists, and product teams to ensure scraped data is usable and trusted.
• Document scraping logic and operational runbooks for long-term maintainability.

Skills

Google scraping

HTML parsing

Rate limiting

CAPTCHA handling

IP rotation

Asynchronous scraping

Cloud-scale scraping

Debugging complex failures

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Our Mission - Join us in shaping the future of paid search intelligence.

Adthena is an award-winning search intelligence platform powered by patented AI technology and a team of dedicated experts. We help brands, marketers, and agencies dominate their competitive landscapes with unparalleled insights into the paid search market. Our Whole Market View, Smart Monitor, and Local View solutions give clients the clarity to optimize spend, increase ROI, and stay ahead of the competition.

Trusted by global brands like Citibank, L’Oréal, and Volvo, and backed by Updata Partners, we’ve been redefining search intelligence since 2012.

In 2025, Adthena continued its winning streak, earning 8 major search industry awards. Highlights include Best AI Search Software Solution at the US Search Awards, Best Search Software Tool at the European Search Awards, and Best Software Innovation at the Global Search Awards.

Ready to make an impact in an industry-leading company? Let’s do it together.

Why Join Us?

We offer the best of both worlds: the maturity and stability of a well-established company combined with the energy, agility, and impact of a scaling tech organisation.

• We’re smaller than large-scale enterprises, offering more autonomy, less red tape, and accelerated growth.

Here’s what we offer:

• Startup Engineering culture
• Strong Culture: Our quarterly surveys show a 93% average approval rating for company culture, with an overall eNPS of 27.
• Award-Winning Product: US 2025 Search Awards for Best AI Search Software Innovation
• Stock Options: Our employees do incredible work, so as we grow, everyone shares the rewards.
• Trust-Based Vacation: Take as much time off as you need, when you need it.
• Remote-First: 52% of Adthenian’s work fully remote, with others choosing Hybrid Work at our 3 Geohubs (London, Austin, Sydney).
• Flexible Work: Work how and where you do your best, with full autonomy over your day.
• Career Growth: Bespoke training and career development via "Sherpa plans” to guide your growth.
• Monthly Hackdays & Training Days
• Family Care Package: Up to 6 months fully paid maternity leave, and 2 months paternity leave.
• Home Office Stipend: $200 for your ideal remote setup.
• Swag Welcome Gift: $70 credit to grab some merch.
• Regular Socials: Summer & Christmas parties, annual and quarterly offsites, monthly meet-ups. See here for more info.
• Volunteer Days: Make a difference with paid volunteer time each quarter. See here for more info.

About the Role

Reporting to: Michal Gondar, Head of Engineering

Location: UK Remote

Interviews: 2 Stages

Start Date: ASAP

What you’ll do at Adthena

As an Anti-Bot Engineer, you will design, build, and operate large-scale, resilient web scraping systems, with a strong focus on Google and Google-like search environments.

This role sits at the intersection of data engineering, reverse engineering, and systems reliability, and is critical to delivering accurate, timely, and trustworthy data at scale.

You will work on complex scraping problems where naïve approaches do not work, including dynamic rendering, anti-bot defences, frequent markup changes, and high-volume data collection.

We are leaders in adopting coding with AI tools. The role is ideal for someone who believes in agentic coding and would like to improve their skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain large-scale Python scraping systems that operate reliably against Google and other highly defended websites
• Continuously adapt to changes in page structure, request flows, and anti-automation mechanisms
• Engineer robust extraction pipelines that prioritise data accuracy, consistency, and observability
• Implement proxy, fingerprinting, and request-routing strategies to maximise stability and throughput
• Monitor scrape health, detect failures early, and rapidly debug production issues
• Optimise performance, cost, and latency across scraping infrastructure
• Work closely with data engineers, data scientists, and product teams to ensure scraped data is usable and trusted
• Document scraping logic and operational runbooks for long-term maintainability

Required Experience:

• Deep hands-on experience scraping Google or similarly protected platforms
• Strong knowledge of HTML parsing, DOM traversal, and data extraction techniques
• Experience handling rate limiting, CAPTCHA, IP rotation, and bot detection systems
• Comfortable working with asynchronous and concurrent scraping architectures
• Experience running scrapers at scale in cloud environments
• Strong debugging skills and ability to reason about complex failure modes

Nice To Have:

• Familiarity with containerisation and orchestration, such as Docker and Kubernetes
• Experience with distributed task systems and job queues
• Background in data quality monitoring and anomaly detection
• Experience working with search, advertising, or competitive intelligence data

What We Value

• Pragmatic problem-solving in hostile and fast-changing technical environments
• High ownership of systems that run continuously and at scale
• A strong bias toward reliability, correctness, and observability
• Ability to explain complex technical behaviour clearly to non-specialists
• Curiosity about how large platforms evolve their defences and infrastructure

Our Core Values

All Adthenians are expected to align closely with our ‘Core Values’.

What it means...

• Get Shit Done: We're big on taking action, owning our challenges, and finding solutions.
• Freedom with Responsibility: We take charge of results to recognition. We know that our hustle not only moves the needle for the company but also sets us up for personal success.
• Deliver Remarkable Quality: We care about exceeding expectations in the work we do and aim to always do our best work as individuals and as a team.
• Smart & Always Improving: We strive daily to expand our knowledge and become better at what we do.