Senior Software Engineer - Identity

Marks & Spencer Plc; Greater London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading retail company in the UK is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to enhance their Identity Platform by building secure, scalable authentication solutions for millions of users. The ideal candidate will have experience in distributed systems, DevOps practices, and JVM languages like Kotlin. This role offers a chance to work in a dynamic team, drive technical innovations, and support a culture of excellence while enjoying several exclusive perks and benefits.

Benefits

20% colleague discount on all products

Competitive holiday allowance

Discretionary bonus schemes

Strong pension and life assurance

Tailored induction and training

Market-leading family policies

24/7 wellbeing support

One paid volunteer day a year

Qualifications

• Experience building and scaling distributed systems, ideally serving millions of users.
• Good knowledge in one or more JVM-based languages (ideally Kotlin with Micronaut).
• Proven experience in DevOps practices and operating what you build.

Responsibilities

• Build and evolve secure, scalable, and high-performance authentication experiences.
• Take end-to-end ownership of features from design to monitoring in production.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers.

Skills

Scaling distributed systems

Proficient in JVM languages (Kotlin)

DevOps practices

CI/CD pipeline design

Cloud environments (Azure)

Identity standards (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect)

Tools

Java

Spring

Micronaut

React

Typescript

SQL Server

Job description

As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you’ll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues! With ethical values that run right through the company’s core and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it’s an exciting time as we’re redefining ourselves into a digital first and engineering-led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator. As a Staff Software Engineer, your expertise will help us on this journey, creating solutions for the business that are robust and scalable, with good observability and metrics, following best-in-class engineering practice.

The M&S Identity team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our dynamic team. You will provide technical expertise, ship thoughtful solutions, and operate with excellence. Creative, curious, and fearless, you will be an integral part of our empowered, self-managing domain engineering team, pushing the boundaries of our Identity Platform.

The team is responsible for the M&S Identity Platform, managing authentication journeys for both customers and colleagues. We sit at a unique intersection, delivering seamless authentication experiences for customers while enabling internal teams to build on a robust Identity Platform.

In this role, you will play a key part in driving our ambition to create a best-in-class software engineering team, environment, and culture. Join our community of engineers to help build a modern digital ecosystem, work with cutting-edge technologies, and do the best work of your career.

What You’ll Do

• Build and evolve secure, scalable, and high-performance authentication experiences for millions of M&S customers and colleagues
• Take end-to-end ownership of features — from design and development through testing, deployment, and monitoring in production
• Contribute to the technical direction of the Identity Platform and help shape solutions that balance customer experience, security, and developer usability
• Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code, and champion engineering best practices in your team
• Take shared responsibility for the operational excellence of the Identity Platform, including participating in our 24-hour support rota
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers to solve real user problems in thoughtful and innovative ways
• Actively participate in code reviews, pair programming, technical discussions and creating high quality documentation to share knowledge and continuously improve as a team
• Mentor and support more junior engineers through coaching and feedback

Who You Are

• Experience building and scaling distributed systems, ideally serving millions of users
• Good knowledge in one or more JVM-based languages (ideally Kotlin with Micronaut)
• Proven experience in DevOps practices, including running and operating what you build
• Experience designing CI/CD pipelines and driving improvements in developer productivity
• Comfortable working in cloud environments (preferably Azure)
• Experience with identity standards like OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect is a strong plus
• You balance long-term thinking with pragmatic delivery, and thrive in high-autonomy teams

Tech Stack

• Java, Spring, SpringBOOT, Micronaut
• React, Next.js, Typescript, Angular
• Azure Cloud, Kubernetes, Dynatrace (observability)
• SQL Server, MongoDB
• Ignite, Redis

What’s In It For You

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone’s Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.