Senior Software Engineer

Beam Benefits; Northern Ireland; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Beam Benefits, part of Principal Financial Group, seeks a senior software engineer to lead by example and build scalable benefits platforms. You’ll own design and development across the full stack, leveraging Ruby on Rails, React and AWS, with AI-assisted tooling to accelerate delivery while maintaining security and reliability.

The role is hands-on (80–90%), with code review, mentorship, and architecture guidance.

Qualifications

• Extensive enterprise-level engineering experience in designing, developing, testing and supporting software applications.
• Strong experience with AWS cloud-based technology.
• Experience incorporating AI coding assistants (e.g., Cursor, Claude) into daily workflows to enhance delivery speed, test generation, and code quality.
• Proven experience designing solution architectures and building scalable web applications, ideally with Rails and a modern frontend such as React.
• Ability to break down complex problems, reduce ambiguity, and drive solutions forward.

Responsibilities

• Own the design and development of scalable software solutions across the full development lifecycle.
• Build and scale applications using Ruby on Rails, React, and AWS cloud architecture, championing AI-assisted development.
• Partner with product managers, designers, engineers to refine requirements and deliver roadmap initiatives.
• Provide senior technical leadership by establishing development approaches, reviewing code, and mentoring engineers.
• Ensure software reliability via automated testing, code reviews, performance planning, and secure coding practices.

Skills

Enterprise-scale software development

AWS cloud

Mentoring

Communication

Leadership

Tools

Ruby on Rails

React

AWS

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Beam Benefits is now part of Principal Financial Group, bringing together Beam's innovative, AI-powered approach to employee benefits with Principal's 140+ years of expertise in financial services. Together, we're simplifying and modernising dental, vision, life, and disability benefits through technology, self-service tools, intelligent underwriting, and personalised support.

As a Fortune 500® organisation operating at the intersection of financial services and technology, we're committed to helping people achieve greater financial security while creating an inclusive, supportive workplace where employees can do their best work and thrive both personally and professionally.

Through our product-driven Agile/Lean DevOps environment, we’ve fostered a culture of innovation and experimentation across our global development teams. As a customer-focused organisation, we work closely with our end users and product owners to understand and rapidly respond to emerging business needs.

Collaboration is embedded into everything we do - from the products we develop to the quality service we provide. We’re driven by the belief that diversity of thought, background, and perspective is critical to creating the best products and experiences for our customers.

About the role

This is a hands-on leadership-by-example role for a senior software engineer who thrives on building impactful software. You will architect scalable systems that simplify benefits access while modernising engineering workflows, leveraging AI tools (such as Cursor and Claude) to ship code faster and maintain high standards for system integrity, data accuracy, and security. You will spend 80 to 90 percent of your time hands-on. The rest goes to the things that make a senior engineer: design, review, and mentorship.

You will:

• Own the design and development of scalable software solutions, contributing across the full development lifecycle from requirements and solution architecture through testing and production
• Build and scale applications using Ruby on Rails, React, and AWS cloud architecture, while championing AI-assisted development practices across the team
• Partner closely with product managers, designers, engineers, and other stakeholders to refine requirements, evaluate technical and product trade-offs, and deliver prioritised roadmap initiatives
• Provide senior level technical leadership by establishing development approaches, influencing architectural decisions, reviewing code, mentoring engineers, and helping the team solve complex technical problems
• Ensure software reliability and maintainability through automated testing, peer code reviews, performance planning, secure coding practices, and robust CI/CD pipelines
• Deliver software predictably by developing accurate estimates, communicating progress and risks, and taking accountability for moving projects from requirements through production
• Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends, recommend improvements, and help ensure solutions remain secure, scalable, maintainable, and aligned with regulatory requirements
• Help drive system modernisation across Beam and Principal platforms, build cloud-native solutions that replace legacy architectures, reduce technical debt, and align with long-term platform scalability

As Principal continues to modernise its systems, this role will offer you an exciting opportunity to build solutions that will directly impact our long-term strategy and tech stack, all while ensuring that our products are robust, scalable, and secure.

Who we're looking for

• Extensive enterprise-level engineering experience in designing, developing, testing and supporting software applications
• Strong experience working with AWS cloud-based technology
• Experience incorporating AI coding assistants (e.g., Cursor, Claude) into daily workflows to enhance delivery speed, test generation, and code quality, backed by rigorous review and validation of AI-generated code
• Proven experience designing solution architectures and building scalable web applications, ideally with Ruby on Rails and a modern frontend framework such as React. Candidates with strong experience in comparable backend frameworks with the ability to apply that experience effectively in a Rails environment may also be considered.
• Ability to break down complex problems, reduce ambiguity, and drive solutions forward
• Strong collaboration skills and experience working across product, engineering, and business teams
• Committed to continuous learning and enjoy helping other engineers grow through coaching, mentoring, and knowledge sharing
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts clearly to business stakeholders and translate business objectives into actionable technical solutions

What will help you stand out

• Experience with event-driven architectures or integration platforms
• Experience in a regulated industry such as insurance, benefits, healthtech, or fintech; or integrating with large-scale claims or policy administration platforms (e.g., SKYGEN)
• Experience with Python, automated testing frameworks, and robust CI/CD practices

Location

This is a hybrid role based at our Northern Ireland office. You must have the right to work in the UK.

Fair employment and equal opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons.

If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment, assessment or selection process, we will work with you to put them in place.

You’ll be asked to complete an equal opportunities monitoring questionnaire. This is used only for monitoring purposes and is not seen by anyone involved in shortlisting or interviewing.

Applications close on 6th November 2026.

We encourage early applications and we will consider all applications received by the closing date.