Senior Software Developer - Scala

Sage; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus & pension

Annual leave 25+5 days

Bank holidays 8

Volunteer days 5

Income protection 50%

Holiday buy/sell

Health coverage

Work away scheme

Training & development

Hybrid working

Healthy Mind app

Memberships

Job summary

Sage is seeking a Senior Backend Developer for its HCM Localisation team. The role focuses on building scalable backend services for a cloud-based enterprise product, with hybrid work requiring 3 days in the Newcastle office each week.

You will work with Scala 2.13, Play Framework, and Pekko in a cloud-first environment, collaborating across teams to modernise the platform and improve performance.

Qualifications

• Extensive backend experience in enterprise/SaaS/cloud environments.
• Strong Scala experience: collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching, error handling.
• Commercial Play Framework or JVM backend experience; Pekko/Akka is a plus.
• Relational DB expertise with MySQL: optimization, indexes, profiling.
• Experience with Redis or similar caching architectures.
• Deep knowledge of OOP, FP, concurrency, and Scala type system.
• Experience designing distributed systems and promoting engineering best practices.
• Hands-on AWS and cloud-native delivery.
• CI/CD, Git, PRs, tests, and release processes.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain backend services.
• Collaborate with frontend, QA, product owners, and other developers.
• Improve observability and reduce technical debt.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines and code reviews.
• Deliver high-quality product increments in a hybrid, team-based environment.
• Support production stability and performance tuning.
• Work with distributed Agile teams and communicate clearly.

Skills

Scala

Play Framework

Akka/Pekko

MySQL

Redis

AWS

CI/CD

Git workflows

Distributed systems

Functional programming

OOP

APIs

Tools

Doobie

Grafana

Kibana

Job description

Job Description

We are looking for a Senior Backend Developer to join our HCM Localisation engineering team and help evolve a large-scale, cloud-based enterprise product. This role is focused on building and maintaining scalable backend services supporting complex product workflows, integrations, performance improvements, and ongoing platform modernisation.

Job Description

We are looking for a Senior Backend Developer to join our HCM Localisation engineering team and help evolve a large-scale, cloud-based enterprise product. This role is focused on building and maintaining scalable backend services supporting complex product workflows, integrations, performance improvements, and ongoing platform modernisation.

*** Please note: This is a hybrid role requiring 3 days per week in our Newcastle office ***

Key Responsibilities

In this role you'll:

• Design, develop, and maintain robust backend services using Scala 2.13 and Play Framework in a Pekko-based environment.
• Build clean, testable, and maintainable code using functional programming principles, immutability, pattern matching, and asynchronous programming with Futures.
• Work with MySQL to design efficient data access patterns, optimize queries, tune indexes, and profile database performance.
• Develop, deploy, and support services in AWS, working closely with DevOps and platform teams to ensure reliable delivery.
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, Git-based pull request workflows, code reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborate with frontend engineers, QA, product owners, solution designers, and other backend developers to deliver high‑quality product increments.
• Support production stability by investigating issues, improving observability, and continuously reducing technical debt.

Required Skills and Experience

• Extensive professional backend development experience, ideally in enterprise, SaaS, or cloud-based product environments.
• Strong hands‑on experience with Scala, including collections, Futures, immutability, pattern matching, error handling, and clean functional design.
• Commercial experience with Play Framework or comparable JVM backend frameworks; Pekko or Akka experience is highly relevant.
• Strong understanding of relational databases, especially MySQL, with practical knowledge of SQL optimization, indexes, query profiling, and transaction behaviour.
• Experience using Redis or similar technologies for caching, session handling, or performance‑sensitive workloads.
• Deep understanding of OOP principles, functional programming, concurrency, the Scala type system, and advanced architectural patterns (e.g., Tagless Final, type classes, effect systems).
• Ability to design and evolve complex distributed systems while promoting engineering best practices across the team
• Hands-on experience with AWS services and cloud-native delivery practices.
• Good understanding of CI/CD, Git, branching strategies, pull request flows, automated testing, and release practices.
• Ability to work effectively in distributed Agile teams, communicate clearly, and take ownership of complex technical problems.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Squeryl, Doobie, or similar Scala data access libraries.
• Familiarity with Grafana or Kibana dashboards, alerting, logging, and production observability practices.
• Experience with large distributed systems, horizontal scaling, resilient service design, or high-throughput Play / Pekko applications.
• Previous experience in Payroll, HR, HCM, ERP, compliance-heavy, or localisation-focused product domains.
• Russian, Ukrainian, or Polish language skills would be beneficial, but are not essential.

Ways of Working

• Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and able to balance new feature development with maintenance, bug fixing, and technical improvement work.
• Proactive in code reviews, design discussions, troubleshooting, and knowledge sharing across the engineering team.
• Strong problem-solving mindset, attention to detail, and willingness to work with an established codebase while helping modernise it over time.

Want to know more about our Product?: https://hcm.sage.com/

Benefits

Benefits? We have plenty... Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCMtTYUUiuU

• Generous bonuses and pension scheme: Up to 8% matched pension contribution plus 2% top-up by Sage.
• 25 days of paid annual leave with the option to buy up to another 5 days.
• 8 bank holiday days.
• Paid 5 days yearly to volunteer through our Sage Foundation.
• 50% income protection.
• Holiday buy + sell.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Work away scheme for up to 10 weeks a year.
• Ongoing training and professional development.
• Hybrid working.
• Healthy Mind app membership
• Access to various helpful memberships for finances, health and wellbeing.