Senior Agent-Orchestrating Software Engineer

The Upstarts Club; Greater London; Remote; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

The Upstarts Club is seeking 2–3 senior software engineers to join a well-funded SaaS business redefining how software is engineered with coding agents. This role is agent-first: engineers specify, direct, manage and verify coding agents rather than write code manually, and you should already work substantially this way.

You will join a small, high-caliber team building a production platform to manage complex workflows.

Qualifications

• Substantial professional experience using coding agents as a primary method of implementing production software.
• Strong senior-level software engineering experience in complex production environments.
• Excellent code comprehension, problem decomposition and technical judgment.
• Experience reviewing, testing and validating production code, including agent-generated implementations.
• Evidence of improved engineering productivity or delivery effectiveness.
• Ability to take ownership of difficult technical problems and communicate with exceptional clarity.

Responsibilities

• Break complex requirements into clear, agent-executable implementation tasks.
• Direct coding agents to develop and modify production software.
• Manage agent context, review outputs and correct implementation errors.
• Make sound technical decisions across mature, complex codebases.
• Use automated verification to establish that implementations work as intended.
• Personally resolve difficult engineering problems when agents fall short.
• Collaborate with product, domain and verification specialists to deliver customer outcomes.
• Maintain full technical ownership of the software delivered.

Skills

Senior-level software engineering

Agent-first development

Code review and testing

Ownership and communication

Problem decomposition

Tools

Python

TypeScript

Django

React

PostgreSQL

AWS

Agent guardrails

Agent orchestration

Job description

You don't just use AI to help you write code. You use coding agents to build software.

We're recruiting 2–3 exceptional senior software engineers for a well-funded SaaS business making a fundamental change to how software is engineered.

This isn't a conventional software engineering role with AI tools added to the workflow. Our client is building an agent-first engineering function, where engineers spend the majority of their time specifying, directing, managing and verifying coding agents rather than writing code manually.

We're looking for engineers who are already working substantially in this way.

The opportunity

You'll join a small, highly capable engineering team developing a sophisticated production platform used to manage complex workflows.

The ambition is to build better software, faster, without compromising correctness, security or reliability.

You'll be responsible for:

• Breaking complex requirements into clear, agent-executable implementation tasks.
• Directing coding agents to develop and modify production software.
• Managing agent context, reviewing outputs and correcting implementation errors.
• Making sound technical decisions across mature, complex codebases.
• Using automated verification to establish that implementations work as intended.
• Personally resolving difficult engineering problems when agents fall short.
• Working closely with product, domain and verification specialists to deliver the right outcomes for customers.

You'll retain full technical ownership of the software you deliver.

What we're looking for-

Your engineering approach matters just as much as your technical background.

You must already have substantial professional experience using coding agents as a primary method of implementing production software.

Alongside that, we're looking for:

• Strong senior-level software engineering experience in complex production environments.
• Professional experience with Python and TypeScript. You don't need equal depth in both.
• Excellent code comprehension, problem decomposition and technical judgement.
• Experience reviewing, testing and validating production code, including agent-generated implementations.
• Evidence that you've improved engineering productivity or delivery effectiveness.
• The ability to take ownership of difficult technical problems and communicate with exceptional clarity.
• A pragmatic, collaborative approach and a strong sense of responsibility for customer outcomes.

Experience orchestrating multiple coding agents concurrently is particularly attractive.

However, parallel orchestration is not mandatory. We're equally interested in exceptional engineers who have developed sophisticated single-agent workflows and can demonstrate how they would extend them.

We're tool-agnostic. You might work with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Devin or other coding agents. What matters is how effectively you use them.

Experience with Django, React, PostgreSQL, AWS, agent guardrails or agent-first engineering transformations would be advantageous.

Who this role isn't for

If your development process is still primarily manual coding, with occasional use of Copilot, ChatGPT or Cursor for suggestions and code snippets, this probably isn't the right opportunity. We're not looking for engineers who want to start working agent-first.

We're looking for engineers who already have.

The package

£125,000–£150,000 basic salary, depending on experience and demonstrated agent-first production capability. Predominantly remote, with occasional meetings in London. UK-based candidates are preferred. Candidates elsewhere in Europe may also be considered where London attendance and suitable working arrangements are practical.

Interested?

If you've already changed the way you engineer software, we'd like to hear from you.

We're particularly interested in what you've built using coding agents, how you've directed the work and how you've established that the resulting software was correct.