Senior Software Engineer

Admiral Group Plc; Cardiff; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Free shares programme (£3,600/yr after

33 days holiday (incl. bank holidays)

Job summary

Admiral Group Plc is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and scale the backend platform powering our mobile applications. This hands‑on role drives the technical direction of backend services, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and engineering practices across AWS and GCP.

You will collaborate with Mobile Engineering, Product, Platform Engineering, and Security teams to deliver reliable, scalable, and maintainable systems, while embracing AI‑assisted development and Claude Code to

Qualifications

• Proven experience building and scaling backend systems in production.
• Strong experience with Kotlin, Python and/or Java for backend services.
• Experience designing and operating cloud‑native solutions in AWS and GCP.
• Hands‑on experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern software delivery processes.
• Experience designing RESTful APIs and distributed systems.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve backend services and platform architecture for scalability, resilience, security and maintainability.
• Design and deliver high-performance APIs and distributed systems powering mobile applications.
• Lead and contribute to code reviews, promoting high engineering standards.
• Apply agentic engineering practices to improve productivity, quality and delivery speed.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to define requirements and deliver technical solutions.

Skills

Kotlin

Python

Java

Cloud platforms

API design

Distributed systems

CI/CD

Tools

Spring Boot

Terraform

AWS

GCP

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to play a key role in designing, building, and scaling the backend platform that powers our mobile applications. This is a hands‑on, high‑impact role where you'll drive the technical direction of backend services, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and engineering practices that enable teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

You'll work within a cross‑functional product environment, collaborating closely with Mobile Engineers, Product, Platform Engineering, and Security teams to build reliable, scalable, and maintainable systems across AWS and GCP.

This role requires deep technical expertise across backend development, cloud‑native architectures, and modern software engineering practices. We're also heavily invested in Agentic Engineering, with AI‑assisted development workflows and Claude Code embedded within our Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) to accelerate delivery while maintaining high engineering standards.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Ownership & Architecture

• Own and evolve backend services and platform architecture, ensuring scalability, resilience, security, and maintainability.
• Design and deliver high-performance APIs and distributed systems that power customer‑facing mobile applications.
• Make pragmatic technical decisions, balancing customer outcomes, delivery speed, operational excellence, and long‑term sustainability.
• Drive engineering best practices across architecture, system design, testing, observability, and code quality.
• Contribute to the evolution of our backend platform strategy across both AWS and GCP environments.

Engineering Excellence

• Design, build, and maintain backend services primarily using Kotlin, Python and Java.
• Deliver clean, well‑tested, maintainable code using modern software engineering practices.
• Lead and contribute to code reviews, maintaining a high engineering bar across the team.
• Leverage Agentic Engineering practices and Claude Code to improve developer productivity, software quality, and delivery speed.
• Champion test automation, continuous integration, and developer experience improvements.
• Continuously improve service performance, reliability, security, and operational efficiency.

Cloud Platform & Infrastructure

• Design, build, and operate cloud‑native solutions across AWS and GCP.
• Work closely with Platform Engineering teams to evolve infrastructure, environments, and deployment capabilities.
• Contribute to infrastructure‑as‑code, platform automation, and environment provisioning.
• Support and optimise CI/CD pipelines to enable rapid, safe, and repeatable software delivery.
• Ensure systems have robust monitoring, alerting, observability, and operational controls.

Delivery & Collaboration

• Partner with Product, Mobile Engineering, and Design teams to define requirements and deliver technical solutions.
• Collaborate with iOS and Android engineers to design scalable APIs, integrations, and backend capabilities.
• Participate in Agile delivery processes, ensuring predictable and high-quality outcomes.
• Provide visibility on technical risks, dependencies, and delivery progress.
• Work closely with Security teams to ensure secure‑by‑design engineering practices.

Leadership & Mentorship

• Mentor and support engineers across backend development and modern engineering practices.
• Lead by example through high-quality delivery, technical excellence, and strong ownership.
• Help shape engineering culture, standards, and ways of working.
• Contribute to platform‑level architectural decisions and technical strategy.
• Champion adoption of Agentic Engineering practices across the engineering organisation.

Continuous Improvement

• Identify and address technical debt, architectural weaknesses, and operational bottlenecks.
• Improve development workflows, tooling, platform capabilities, and developer experience.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, AI‑assisted engineering approaches, and cloud capabilities.
• Stay current with backend engineering, cloud‑native technologies, platform engineering, and Agentic Engineering trends.
• Contribute to the long‑term evolution of our backend platform and engineering capability.

Required Experience

• Proven experience building and scaling backend systems in production environments.
• Strong experience developing backend services using Kotlin, Python and/or Java.
• Experience designing and operating cloud‑native solutions in AWS and GCP.
• Hands‑on experience with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and modern software delivery processes.
• Experience designing and building APIs, distributed systems, and event‑driven architectures.
• Experience operating services throughout their full lifecycle, from design and development through to production support.
• Track record of operating effectively in fast‑paced, product‑focused engineering environments.
• Experience using modern AI‑assisted development tooling and engineering workflows is highly desirable.

Essential

Technical Skills

• Strong proficiency in Python, Java, and/or Kotlin.
• Experience with modern backend frameworks such as Spring Boot, FastAPI, Micronaut, Ktor, or similar.
• Experience designing and building RESTful APIs and distributed systems.
• Strong understanding of AWS and GCP cloud platforms.
• Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code tools such as Terraform.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies.
• Experience with observability, including logging, monitoring, alerting, and tracing.
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases.
• Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and performance optimisation skills.
• Experience leveraging AI‑assisted development tooling, including Claude Code or equivalent agentic development platforms.

Desirable

• Kubernetes and containerisation technologies such as Docker.
• Event‑driven architectures using Kafka, SNS/SQS, Pub/Sub, or similar technologies.
• Multi‑cloud platform experience.
• Platform Engineering and Internal Developer Platform (IDP) experience.
• Experience implementing LLM‑powered applications, AI agents, and agentic workflows.
• Understanding of mobile backend architectures and mobile API optimisation.
• Experience with security, compliance, and cloud governance best practices.

What We're Looking For

• Strong ownership mindset with a focus on customer outcomes, platform reliability, and engineering excellence.
• Passion for modern software engineering and cloud‑native development.
• Enthusiasm for Agentic Engineering and AI‑assisted software delivery.
• Ability to operate across application, platform, and infrastructure boundaries.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Comfortable working in a fast‑moving, hands‑on environment.
• Pragmatic and solution‑oriented approach to complex technical challenges

Admiral: Where You Can

We take pride in being a diverse and inclusive business. It's a place where you can Be You, and show up as you are. We’re committed to fostering a people‑first culture where everyone is accepted, supported, and empowered to be brilliant. You can, Grow And Progress at a pace and direction that suits you, Make A Difference for our customers and each other, and Share in Our Future with all colleagues eligible for up to £3,600 of free shares each year after one year of service.

Everyone receives 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) when they join us, increasing the longer you stay with us, up to a maximum of 38 days (including bank holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to an additional five days of annual leave.

We’re proud of our people‑first culture. In fact, we've been recognised as a Great Place to Work for Women, a Great Place to Work for Wellbeing, and an overall Great Place to Work for over 25 years! We’re fully committed to making sure your progression is not slowed or halted by barriers related to race, gender, age, sexuality or any of the protected characteristics.

Our fantastic benefits make sure our colleagues have a great work‑life balance; You can view some of our other key benefits here.

Disability Confident Leader

As a Disability Confident Leader, for candidates with a disability or long‑term health condition, that opt into the Disability Confident scheme, we’ll invite a fair and proportionate number of applicants that meet the essential requirements of the role to the first stage of our selection process.

If you need any adjustments or support with your application or during the recruitment process, just let us know. Please do email us. This number is dedicated to supporting candidates that require reasonable adjustments or support during the application process.