Senior Software Engineer - (Java/AI) Lifecycle

IG KnowHow; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Private medical cover

Life insurance

Gym membership

25 days holiday + Birthday + charity/3

Hybrid work arrangement

Job summary

IG Group in the City of London is seeking a Senior Full Stack Engineer to push AI across Lifecycle engineering, focusing on AI-assisted coding, testing and deployments, and safe integration with Jira, GitLab, and our CI/CD pipeline.

You will work hands-on with Java backend and build tooling, while promoting test-driven development, ownership, and responsible AI practices. The role offers hybrid work with three days in the office and a chance to shape our AI-enabled engineering platform.

Qualifications

• Strong background in software engineering with production systems
• Experience across the stack frontend/backend and modern service ecosystems
• Fluent with test-driven development and pair programming

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain internal tooling embedding AI into daily engineering work
• Enhance observability in the AI-assisted pipeline
• Automate manual steps in coding, testing and release processes
• Split work into small releasable pieces for continuous delivery
• Collaborate with product on domain and deliverables
• Drive AI adoption as a core value in delivery
• Work with test and PM to integrate AI into testing pipelines
• Evaluate and roll out AI developer tools like Claude Code
• Follow standards for responsible AI use in SDLC and data handling
• Mentor engineers in AI tooling and practices

Skills

Java backend

React / React Native

Test-driven development

Automation/CI

Tools

Jira

Confluence

GitLab

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Job Title Senior Full Stack Engineer - (AI enablement) Lifecycle Job Description

So, who are we? IG Group is a FTSE 100 fintech operating across five continents, serving over 1.4m customers and handling billions of dollars in transactions – built on scale, trust, and proof. We didn't pivot to innovation; it's how we've always operated. What that means for the people who work here is real: genuinely complex problems to solve, the technology and resources to tackle them properly, and the kind of scope that's rare in established businesses.

The bar is high – bring a curious and forward-thinking mindset and we'll give you the platform to define what comes next.

Join us at IG – the future gets built here.

Your team:

We’re looking for a Senior Full Stack Engineer to push hard on AI across Lifecycle engineering: AI-assisted coding, testing and deployments, defect triage and observability, and the internal tooling that connects our AI tools safely to Jira, GitLab, and our CI/CD pipeline. This is a hands‑on role on our Java backend. You’ll build tooling yourself, and you’ll help set how your team adopts it.

Your role in the Team’s Success:

This role suits engineers with a strong grounding in software engineering practice: test‑driven development, pair programming, and real ownership of systems from design through to production support, with real depth in Java and the modern backend services ecosystem. The fundamentals matter most: engineers who can write their own tests, review their own designs, and catch their own defects, and who use AI to extend that practice further and faster. Growing into the person the whole group comes to for technical judgement is part of the role. Our ambition: engineering that runs itself: The long‑term goal is a pipeline where AI agents handle the bulk of coding support, testing, and triage end‑to‑end, largely unattended, with engineers stepping in for genuine judgement calls and exceptions. We’re early on that path today, and we want someone in this role who treats the destination as real and pushes their team toward it deliberately.

What you’ll do:

• Build and maintain internal tooling that embeds AI into day‑to‑day engineering work: coding assistants, AI‑assisted test generation, deployments, and defect triage.
• Contribute to observability in the AI‑assisted pipeline, so every stage shows what the tooling is doing, catching, and missing.
• Identify manual steps in coding, testing, and release that can run largely unattended, and help build the automation to get there.
• Split work into small, releasable pieces that ship continuously.
• Work closely with a product person on your product domain, so what you build is grounded in real delivery.
• Treat improving ways of working and driving AI adoption as a fundamental, ongoing part of delivering value.
• Work with the test and PM function to bring AI into the testing pipeline: exploratory test generation, defect clustering, flaky‑test detection, and smarter prioritisation of what to test.
• Evaluate and help roll out LLM‑based developer tools, for example Claude Code and similar, integrating them safely with our Jira, Confluence, and GitLab environments.
• Follow and help refine standards for responsible AI use in the SDLC: data handling, prompt hygiene, and guardrails around production and customer data.
• Mentor less experienced engineers on effective use of AI tooling.
• Work with security and compliance to make sure AI tooling meets IG’s regulatory and data‑handling requirements.
• Track the metrics that show whether AI tooling is helping: cycle time, defect escape rate, test coverage, delivery turnaround. Iterate based on what the data shows.

What you’ll need for this role:

• Extensive background as a Software Engineer, with demonstrated technical judgement on production systems.
• We’ll consider those stronger in front end React / React Native or hands‑on expertise in Java or a comparable backend service ecosystem – as long as you have experience in and are happy working across the stack.
• Strong fluency in test‑driven development and pair programming as working disciplines.
• Real ownership experience: you’ve designed features or systems, built them, deployed them, and supported them in production.
• A genuine appetite for aggressive automation. You get energised by removing manual steps entirely.
• Some experience evaluating or using LLM‑based developer tools in a real engineering environment.
• Preferred Experience with MCP, agentic tooling, or Spec Driven Development.
• Familiarity with the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Confluence) and its APIs.
• Prior experience in financial services, trading platforms, or another regulated, high‑reliability environment.

The Perks:

• Competitive salary
• Flexible Benefits Package on top of your salary (12%)
• Private medical cover for you and your family
• Life insurance
• Contribution to gym memberships
• 25 Days holiday, with 1 additional day off to celebrate your Birthday & 2 additional days off a year for voluntary work (28 in total)
• The option to buy or sell holiday days
• A comprehensive global and local onboarding process
• Enhanced primary (maternity), secondary (paternity), and shared parental pay and leave, as well as a range of support and benefits for parents

We work hybrid, which means three days in the office. We’ll recognise your talent and make sure that you can still have a life – at work, and outside of it. Networks, committees, awards, sports and social clubs, mentorships, volunteering opportunities, extra time off… the list goes on.

Looking for a career at a company that will support you, challenge you and help you grow? IG Group can provide that.

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IG Group is a FTSE 100 fintech operating across five continents, serving over 1.3m customers and handling billions of dollars in transactions – built on scale, trust, and proof. We didn't pivot to innovation; it's how we've always operated. What that means for the people who work here is real: genuinely complex problems to solve, the technology and resources to tackle them properly, and the kind of scope that's rare in established businesses. The bar is high – bring a curious and forward-thinking mindset and we'll give you the platform to define what comes next. Join us at IG – the future gets built here.