Senior Backend Engineer- Kotlin

Marks and Spencer; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Marks & Spencer is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Hybrid London team, delivering scalable backend features for millions of customers. You’ll design, build, test and maintain software in multi-disciplinary squads, leading with quality and technical excellence.

You’ll work on complex systems, APIs and modern patterns, collaborating with senior leaders and engineers to ship value while operating in a self-managing, high-autonomy environment.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in a modern backend-focused technology environment and software engineering best practices.
• Expert understanding of software development principles and patterns, including MVC, SOLID, DRY and KISS.
• Solid expertise using distributed version control systems such as Git.
• Proficiency with Test Driven Development (TDD), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and non-functional testing approaches.
• Strong DevOps mindset with experience operating services and solutions using a "you build it, you run it" approach.

Responsibilities

• Writing, testing and debugging code for complex features, distributed systems and legacy migrations, while helping optimise deployment pipelines.
• Providing technical leadership, guidance and estimation on complex, high-impact projects, ensuring successful delivery of software solutions.
• Contributing to architectural and design decisions that align with business requirements, long-term technology strategy and engineering standards.
• Reviewing code and providing constructive feedback to ensure maintainability, quality and adherence to technical standards.
• Collaborating with a broad range of stakeholders, including senior leaders, engineers and external partners, while contributing to engineering communities of practice.
• (Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Gradle)
• (RESTful APIs, GraphQL (nice to have))
• (GitHub Actions, Figma, MDM (nice to have))

Skills

Backend focus

Software engineering best practices

MVC pattern

SOLID principles

TDD/BDD

Tools

Kotlin

Jetpack Compose

Gradle

RESTful APIs

GraphQL

GitHub Actions

Figma

MDM

Job description

This position is hybrid with 1 day/week in our Paddington, London office.

As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you’ll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues. With ethical values that run right through the company’s core, and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it’s an exciting time as we’re redefining ourselves into a digital-first and engineering-led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator.

We are seeking a passionate Senior Software Engineer who will provide technical expertise, ship thoughtfully and operate with excellence. Being creative, curious and fearless, you will be an integral part of our empowered, self-managing, multi-disciplinary engineering teams, designing, building, releasing and maintaining products that deliver value for customers and colleagues.

What you'll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Writing, testing and debugging code for complex features, distributed systems and legacy migrations, while helping optimise deployment pipelines.
• Providing technical leadership, guidance and estimation on complex, high-impact projects, ensuring successful delivery of software solutions.
• Contributing to architectural and design decisions that align with business requirements, long-term technology strategy and engineering standards.
• Reviewing code and providing constructive feedback to ensure maintainability, quality and adherence to technical standards.
• Collaborating with a broad range of stakeholders, including senior leaders, engineers and external partners, while contributing to engineering communities of practice.
• Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Gradle
• RESTful APIs, GraphQL (nice to have)
• GitHub Actions, Figma, MDM (nice to have)

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• Strong experience in a modern backend-focused technology environment and software engineering best practices.
• Expert understanding of software development principles and patterns, including MVC, SOLID, DRY and KISS.
• Solid expertise using distributed version control systems such as Git.
• Proficiency with Test Driven Development (TDD), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and non-functional testing approaches.
• Strong DevOps mindset with experience operating services and solutions using a "you build it, you run it" approach.

Everyone's welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.