Staff Software Engineer

Just Eat Takeaway.com; Wealden; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Just Eat Takeaway.com is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the JET Ventures - AI Innovation & Incubation. You will guide architecture, mentor engineers, and shape the AI Agentic framework across multiple teams.

The role emphasizes autonomy, experimentation, and collaboration with product and commercial teams to deliver scalable, impact-driven solutions for millions of customers.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering and architectural experience.
• Deep understanding of event driven architecture & distributed systems.
• Experience with big data & near real time data processing.
• Proficiency in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP).
• Strong problem solving skills.
• Experience guiding software engineering decisions via influence, rather than by authority.
• Flexible & proactive with the ability to manage shifting priorities.
• Experience with mobile apps and managing distributed teams is beneficial but not essential.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of system architecture and collaborate across multiple stakeholders.
• Collaborate with cross functional engineers & teams to deliver exceptional user experiences.
• Develop and execute innovative ideas, staying current with industry trends, using a fail-fast approach.
• Hands-on with POCs and rapid prototypes in a dynamic environment.
• Lead, coach, and develop engineering teams providing technical direction and delivery oversight.
• Drive rapid prototyping, influence stakeholders, align projects with company goals.
• Oversee agile development, ensure efficient workflows and clear communication to stakeholders.
• Own the technical roadmap in collaboration with product managers.

Skills

Software engineering

System architecture

Event-driven architecture

Distributed systems

Big data processing

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Mentoring / leadership

Agile / DevOps

Job description

Ready for a challenge?

Then Just Eat Takeaway.com might be the place for you. We’re a leading global online food delivery platform, and our vision is to empower everyday convenience.

Whether it’s a Friday-night feast, a post-gym poke bowl, or grabbing some groceries, our tech platform connects tens of millions of customers with hundreds of thousands of restaurant, grocery and convenience partners across the globe.

About this role

We are seeking a Staff Engineer to lead a highly visible and impactful engineering team within the JET Ventures - AI Innovation & Incubation at Just Eat Takeaway. The Incubator team operates with a high degree of autonomy to identify, develop, and validate new business ideas and technologies from high-risk moonshots to innovative concepts with the potential to drive future growth.

The Incubator functions like an internal startup, rapidly testing early-stage ideas for market viability and business value. Once proven, these initiatives are scaled and transitioned to long-term product teams within JET. Current areas of exploration include ground robotics, AI-driven conversational commerce (LLMs and agentic platforms), Model Context Protocol, Agentic commerce and other disruptive technologies.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will lead the design of our highly performant AI Agentic and Autonomous delivery solution that will drive revenue and enhance the shopping experience for millions of customers. You will work across multiple teams responsible for experimentation and innovation with market trending ideas by following the organisational strategy.

As a key technical leader, you will influence the technical direction of our teams, mentor engineers and shape the architecture of our AI Innovation and Agentic Framework deliverables for JET.

These are some of the key ingredients to the role:

• Take a leading role in the design of our system architecture, third party integration planning and work in collaboration across multiple business stakeholders.
• Collaborate with other cross functional engineers & engineering teams, as well as with key stakeholders to ensure we deliver exceptional user experiences.
• Developing and executing new innovative ideas, staying current with industry trends, and applying a “fail fast” approach.
• Working within a dynamic environment, balancing strategy and innovation. You will be hands-on with POCs and rapid prototypes.
• Lead, coach, and develop Engineering teams providing technical direction,solution design and delivery oversight.
• Drive rapid prototyping, influence stakeholders, align projects with JET goals, and make critical technical/strategic decisions for short-term experimentation and long-term scalability.
• Oversee agile development, ensuring efficient workflows and timely deliverables providing clear communication to stakeholders, and own the technical roadmap in collaboration with product managers.
• Foster a strong team culture, champion relationships across Engineering, Product, and commercial teams, and advocate for top-tier technical excellence and quality ownership.

What will you bring to the table?

• Strong software engineering and architectural experience.
• A deep understanding of event driven architecture & distributed systems.
• Experience of working with big data & near real time data processing problems.
• Proficiency in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP for example)
• Strong problem solving skills.
• Experience of guiding software engineering decisions via influence, rather than by authority.
• Flexible & proactive with the ability to manage shifting priorities.
• Experience with mobile apps and managing distributed teams is beneficial but not essential

At JET, this is how we play

Our teams forge connections internally and work with some of the best-known brands on the planet, giving us truly international impact in a dynamic environment.

Being the best at what we do isn’t just about delivering on our strategy. It’s a competition for something incredibly valuable – our customers’ choice. Every time a customer decides where to order, they’re picking a side.

At the heart of the JET Customer League are our values and behaviours. They guide every interaction, every decision, every innovation. These are the actions we need to perform consistently and brilliantly, to surpass the competition and earn our customers’ loyalty, again and again.

Fun, fast-paced and supportive, the JET culture is about movement, growth, helping one another to succeed and celebrating wins. By truly living our values and embodying our behaviours, we’re building a customer-first culture which enables us to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Inclusion, Diversity & Belonging

No matter who you are, what you look like, who you love, or where you are from, you can find your place at Just Eat Takeaway.com. We’re committed to creating an inclusive culture, encouraging diversity of people and thinking, in which all employees feel they truly belong and can bring their most colourful selves to work every day.

What else are we delivering?

Want to know more about our JETers, culture or company? Have a look at our career site where you can find people’s stories, blogs, podcasts and more JET journeys.