Senior Software Engineer

ZipRecruiter; Market Harborough; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading innovative logistics company in Market Harborough is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Cloud & Systems) to design and build mission-critical software for drone logistics. This role involves architecting systems for performance and resilience, leading cloud and frontend development efforts, and mentoring engineering teams. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in systems programming and cloud-native applications, with strong leadership skills. Competitive salary and benefits provided.

Qualifications

• Professional software engineering experience with complex, reliable systems.
• Track record in systems programming, building performance-critical applications.
• Experience deploying cloud-native applications and containerization.

Responsibilities

• Lead design of our drone logistics platform and systems.
• Develop low-latency software that executes on drones.
• Design resilient systems for challenging environments.

Skills

Systems programming (Rust, Go)

Cloud-native applications

JavaScript/TypeScript

Docker

Kubernetes

Technical leadership

Job description

Overview

Job Title: Senior Software Engineer (Cloud & Systems)

The Opportunity: At Skylift, we are revolutionising offshore logistics for the renewable energy industry. We deploy fleets of heavy-lift drones to execute complex, large-scale cargo delivery operations to offshore wind farms, turning missions that once took hours into minutes. We are seeking a seasoned Senior Software Engineer to architect and build the mission-critical software that underpins these operations—from our cloud-based mission control to the real-time code executing on the drone itself.

This is a unique opportunity to solve deeply technical challenges where software has a direct physical impact. You will be responsible for designing systems where fault tolerance isn't just a goal, but a necessity, and where performance is measured in microseconds. If you are driven to build robust, high-performance systems that operate at the intersection of cloud, robotics, and logistics, we want to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Architect End-to-End Systems: Lead the technical design of our comprehensive drone logistics platform, spanning cloud services, pilot interfaces, and on-drone flight control systems.
• Build Mission-Critical Software: Develop and optimise highly reliable, low-latency code that executes on our drones. This is a real-time environment where your software must perform flawlessly to ensure operational safety and success.
• Engineer for Resilience: Design and implement fault-tolerant systems that handle network interruptions, hardware failures, and other adverse conditions gracefully in challenging offshore environments.
• Drive Cloud & Frontend Development: Own major components of our cloud platform and pilot-facing applications, building scalable backend services (Go/Rust) and intuitive user interfaces (JavaScript).
• Set Technical Standards: Elevate the entire engineering team by establishing and advocating for best practices in systems architecture, code quality, testing, and CI/CD for both cloud and embedded environments.
• Technical Mentorship: Provide insightful code reviews, technical guidance, and mentorship to other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence.

Required Skills & Experience

• Professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of delivering complex and reliable systems.
• Proficiency in systems programming (e.g., Rust, Go) for building performance-critical applications.
• Strong experience building and deploying cloud-native applications, including proficiency with containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Deep understanding of software architecture, distributed systems principles, and building fault-tolerant services.
• Proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript and experience with a modern frontend framework (e.g., React, Vue, SolidJS).
• A track record of technical leadership, demonstrating the ability to own projects and make critical architectural decisions with a high degree of autonomy.
• Purveyor of fine hand-whittled artisan code.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience in robotics, avionics, or developing software for embedded or resource-constrained environments (RTOS).
• Familiarity with real-time communication protocols and low-latency networking.
• Background in data-intensive applications, geospatial systems, or mechatronics.
• Specific experience with the SolidJS framework.