Senior Backend Engineer (Java/Scala) – AI‑Driven, Hybrid

Ocado; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid office policy: onsite 40%

Work from anywhere: 30 days

30 days annual leave

Share plan program

€150 monthly allowance

Enhanced parental leave

Job summary

Ocado is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer (Java/Scala) to join the Mobile Fulfilment backend team. The role involves designing and building large‑scale, distributed systems, and leading end‑to‑end technical initiatives within a hybrid work model based in Sofia.

You will accelerate AI adoption, improve code quality, and collaborate with product partners to translate requirements into robust solutions, while mentoring teammates and contributing to the architectural roadmap.

Qualifications

• Experience building backend systems in Java or Scala for high‑availability production systems.
• Knowledge of software engineering best practices and processes.
• Hands‑on knowledge of resilience patterns and approaches.
• Track record using AI tools to deliver engineering outcomes.
• Comfort with AI-assisted development and forming working practices.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and managed services (AWS and/or GCP).
• Experience leading multiple technical initiatives from discovery to release.
• Ability to propose technical solutions to blockers and adopt new languages/frameworks.
• Curiosity to learn new technologies and evaluate alternatives.
• Product‑ and customer‑focused mindset.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain large‑scale, high‑availability distributed systems.
• Lead technical initiatives from discovery to release with full ownership.
• Ensure quality through testing, code quality, monitoring, and alerting.
• Contribute to long‑term architectural and product vision.
• Embed AI tools into daily workflow to accelerate delivery and raise quality.
• Champion AI adoption and share techniques with the team.
• Participate in all SDLC stages following agile practices.
• Continuously improve processes, ways of working, and tools.
• Collaborate with business and product partners to translate requirements.
• Participate in on‑call rotation to support production services.
• Coach and train team members for growth.

Skills

Java

Scala

Cloud AWS

GCP

AI tools

Distributed systems

On-call

Leadership

Tools

SQS/SNS

DynamoDB

S3

Kinesis

Job description

Ocado is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer (Java/Scala) to join the Mobile Fulfilment backend team. The role involves designing and building large‑scale, distributed systems, and leading end‑to‑end technical initiatives within a hybrid work model based in Sofia.

You will accelerate AI adoption, improve code quality, and collaborate with product partners to translate requirements into robust solutions, while mentoring teammates and contributing to the architectural roadmap.