Senior Software Engineer - Backend

On the Beach; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday + birthday off

Learnerbly learning platform access

Enhanced maternity/paternity leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Health plan (Simplyhealth)

Gym discount

Share Incentive Plan

Death in Service cover

Onsite coffee shop discount

Cycle to Work

Job summary

On the Beach, a leading UK online package holiday specialist, is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (Backend) to design and build scalable backend services and platforms. The role emphasizes distributed systems, cloud-native architecture and strong backend capabilities within AWS.

You will work across the full stack with a backend focus, collaborating with product managers and engineers to deliver reliable software at scale from our Manchester office.

Qualifications

• Strong commercial backend software engineering
• Experience with C# and .NET
• Designing and developing APIs
• Building distributed systems and service-oriented architectures
• Developing cloud-native applications, ideally within AWS
• Working with messaging or event-driven architecture
• Designing reliable integrations with external/internal systems
• Experience with SQL/NoSQL data stores
• Building scalable systems handling high traffic/data volumes
• Performance optimisation and caching strategies

Responsibilities

• Designing and building scalable backend applications and services
• Developing APIs used by customer-facing applications and internal systems
• Integrating with external suppliers and third-party platforms
• Building systems that process high volumes of requests and data
• Designing distributed and event-driven architectures
• Working with asynchronous messaging and streaming technologies
• Solving performance, latency, resilience and availability issues
• Improving caching and data-access strategies
• Building reliable transactional workflows
• Developing applications and services within AWS

Skills

Backend engineering

C#/.NET

APIs

Distributed systems

AWS

Docker/Kubernetes

SQL/NoSQL

Asynchronous messaging

Performance tuning

Observability

Tools

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

SQL/NoSQL

Job description

We’re On the Beach! Since 2003, we've been rewriting the rules of how people discover, book, and experience their perfect getaway. What started as connecting people to short-haul beach holidays has evolved into something much bigger - premium beach destinations, long-haul adventures, and vibrant city breaks – and that’s just the beginning of our story.
We send around two million holidaymakers on their dream breaks every year. And we're still growing.
Powered by our deep-rooted entrepreneurial spirit, proprietary tech, curiosity and our incredible people, we’re accelerating - delivering best in class technology, the ultimate holiday app, and experiences that keep our customers coming back for more.
Ready to build the future of travel with us?

About The Role

As a Senior Software Engineer (Backend), you’ll design and build scalable applications, services and platforms across On the Beach.
This is a full-stack engineering position with a stronger emphasis on backend engineering, distributed systems and cloud-native architecture.
Our backend engineers solve a wide variety of problems. You could be working on systems responsible for communicating with external travel suppliers, processing large volumes of hotel inventory and pricing information, powering customer search experiences, or ensuring bookings move reliably through complex transactional workflows.
You’ll work across the development lifecycle and collaborate with engineers, product managers and other technical specialists to design, build, deploy and operate reliable software at scale.

What You’ll Be Doing Day To Day

• Designing and building scalable backend applications and services
• Developing APIs used by customer-facing applications and internal systems
• Integrating with external suppliers and third-party platforms
• Building systems that process high volumes of requests and data
• Designing distributed and event-driven architectures
• Working with asynchronous messaging and streaming technologies
• Solving problems around performance, latency, resilience and availability
• Improving caching and data-access strategies
• Building reliable transactional workflows
• Developing applications and services within AWS
• Deploying and operating containerised applications
• Improving monitoring, alerting and observability
• Exploring AI-assisted engineering and modern development tooling
  

At Senior level, you’ll be expected to understand the wider system rather than only the individual service you are working on.
You should be comfortable considering how systems behave in production, identifying failure scenarios and balancing scalability, resilience, maintainability and delivery speed.
We’re looking for strong full-stack engineers whose experience leans towards backend and platform engineering.

You’ll be a great addition to our team if you have the following skills, knowledge and experience

• Strong commercial backend software engineering
• C# and .NET or comparable experience building modern backend applications
• Designing and developing APIs
• Building distributed systems and service-oriented architectures
• Developing cloud-native applications, ideally within AWS
• Working with messaging, asynchronous processing or event-driven architecture
• Designing reliable integrations with external or internal systems
• SQL and/or NoSQL data stores
• Building scalable systems handling significant traffic or data volumes
• Performance optimisation, caching and latency reduction
• Designing for resilience and failure
• Containerisation and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes
• Observability, monitoring and operating production systems
• Automated testing and modern engineering practices
  

We don’t expect candidates to have worked with every technology in our stack. Strong engineering fundamentals and evidence of solving comparable problems at scale are more important than matching every individual tool.

What We’re Looking For At Senior Level

Beyond the technologies themselves, we’re looking for someone who:

• Can independently solve complex engineering problems
• Thinks about the customer and commercial impact of technical decisions
• Understands the trade-offs between speed, quality and long-term maintainability
• Can contribute meaningfully to technical and architectural discussions
• Communicates clearly with both technical and non-technical colleagues
• Raises engineering standards through collaboration rather than hierarchy
• Helps less experienced engineers develop
• Is comfortable working in an environment where priorities and problems can change quickly
  

What To Expect From Our Interview Process

After a call with our Talent Acquisition Team, We will run a 3 stage interview process all on Microsoft Teams, Which will consist of:
Hiring Manager meet & greet - 30 Minutes
Behavioural & ways of working - 60 Minutes
Tech Pairing & System Design - 120 Minutes, broken down into two parts (50 minutes each) with a short break and time for your questions at the end.
We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to perform at their best. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the interview process please let the Talent Acquisition team know and they will be happy to assist.

Ways of working

Our full time hours are 37.5 per week, but we don't have rigid working hours so you can find the working pattern that's right for you. We have core working hours between 10am - 4pm, so we can collaborate and enjoy the social side of work.
We also have hybrid working so we all work from home and from our Aeroworks office in Manchester City Centre. We operate a remote-first working model, with colleagues meeting in our Manchester office one day every two weeks. Please note that all applicants must be eligible to work full-time in the UK

Our Benefits

We might be biased but we think our colleagues are pretty great. They're the people that have made On the Beach what it is today and continue to make it vibrant and successful tomorrow. That's why we offer a competitive benefits package, known as our Beach Perks, to all On the Beach colleagues.

These Include

• 25 days holiday plus your birthday off
• Generous discount on holidays, plus you will receive 2 extra days annual leave on top of your holiday allowance to use whilst you're away on your On the Beach package holiday
• Access to Learnerbly learning platform, plus workshops, courses and professional qualifications
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental leave and adoption pay, plus other family friendly support
• Employee Assistance Programme and free access to counselling
• Simplyhealth Optimise Health Plan
• Company Sick Pay scheme
• Regular wellbeing events
• Gym discount
• Share Incentive Plan (SIP)
• Death in Service cover
• Onsite subsidised coffee shop
• The Sandbox (our very own bar)
• Food and drink discounts across a number of venues in Manchester City Centre
• Regular social events
• Cycle to Work scheme

We're On the Beach! One of the UK's largest online package holiday specialists, with significant opportunities for growth.