Senior Software Engineer (Back-End)

Arctic Research and Development; Cirencester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Private Health Insurance

Dental & Optician

Equity options

Travel to Arctic sites

Mission-driven culture

Small team ownership

Job summary

Arctic Research and Development in Calmsden, Cirencester, UK, is seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to help build Auka, our Arctic OS that integrates data feeds, geospatial data, and ML capabilities. You will own data ingestion, APIs, and cloud infra while delivering reliable systems in environments with intermittent connectivity.

We value engineers who learn quickly, reason about geospatial data, and design robust backend services using Python and AWS.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building production backend systems.
• Experience with GIS or geospatial data.
• Production experience with Python.
• Proven experience with cloud platforms (AWS).
• Intellectual curiosity and rapid learning ability.
• Pride in reliability and operational quality.
• Comfort with ambiguity and changing requirements.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain data ingestion pipelines and processing systems
• Design and implement REST APIs and web microservices
• Rapid, iterative prototyping of new concepts
• Manage and develop cloud infrastructure
• Architect and optimise database systems
• Implement telemetry, logging, and monitoring solutions

Skills

Python

Geospatial data

Backend systems

Cloud platforms

Tools

AWS

Job description

SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER (BACK-END)

LOCATION: CALMSDEN, CIRENCESTER, UK

FULL-TIME, HYBRID: 2 DAYS (MIN) ON-SITE, 3 DAYS REMOTE

THE LAST FRONTIER

The Arctic is a place of extremes: unforgiving, untamed, and undergoing rapid change. A literal defrosting reveals a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity spanning energy, defence, logistics, research, and infrastructure.

ARD was founded on a paradox. The Arctic is both the next great economic frontier and one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Rich in resources and strategically vital, yet bone-chillingly cold, dark for months, and fundamentally inhospitable to humans. This paradox—an explosion of activity in a place that resists human presence is why we exist.

Our solution is autonomy.

We build systems that operate reliably and intelligently in the Arctic, so that humans don't always have to.

Founded by record-holding pioneers with decades of polar experience, we take calculated risks on hard problems that matter. If you want to build and deploy ground-up technology with real-world impact, at an inflection point in history that won’t reappear, we’d like to talk.

THE ROLE

As a Back-End Software Engineer you’ll work across the stack as we build Auka, our Arctic OS that integrates hardware feeds, varied data sources, and machine learning algorithms. You'll iterate quickly, shipping production code that powers systems operating where connectivity is sparse and failure isn't an option. This is a role for a solid generalist — someone who sees themselves as an enthusiastic dabbler, a jack of all trades, or a tinkerer at heart — content to learn new skills and move across projects as requirements evolve.

Core Responsibilities

• Build and maintain data ingestion pipelines and processing systems
• Design and implement REST APIs and web microservices
• Rapid, iterative prototyping of new concepts
• Manage and develop cloud infrastructure
• Architect and optimise database systems
• Implement telemetry, logging, and monitoring solutions

Requirements

• 3+ years building production backend systems
• Experience with GIS or geospatial data
• Production experience with Python
• Proven experience with cloud platforms (we use AWS)
• Intellectual curiosity and rapid learning ability
• Pride in reliability and operational quality, not just shipping features
• Comfort with ambiguity - we’re a young company and things change frequently

Desirable Skills

• Machine learning or data science background
• Time-series data and databases (e.g. InfluxDB, TimescaleDB)
• Data workflow orchestration (e.g. Airflow, Dagster, Flyte)
• Kubernetes and Helm Charts
• Infrastructure as Code (Pulumi, Terraform)
• Ruby on Rails

What we offer

• Competitive compensation
• Private Health Insurance
• Dental & Optician
• Equity — meaningful options as an early employee at an early-stage company
• Travel to Arctic sites and outposts if needed
• Mission-driven culture — focus on impact, not hours logged
• Small team, real ownership — what you build matters and ships