Staff Software Engineer - Identity

MARKS&SPENCER; London; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK retailer is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join their Identity team. You will shape the technical direction of the Identity Platform, focusing on user authentication and developer experiences. Ideal candidates will have over 8 years of experience in distributed systems and expertise in JVM-based languages, particularly Kotlin. This role offers competitive perks including a colleague discount, holidays, and wellbeing support.

Benefits

20% colleague discount

Competitive holiday entitlement

Discretionary bonus schemes

Defined Contribution Pension Scheme

Industry-leading parental policies

Wellbeing support and resources

Charity volunteer day

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building and scaling distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in Kotlin with Micronaut preferred.
• Proven experience in DevOps practices, including operational responsibility.

Responsibilities

• Influence the technical direction of the Identity Platform.
• Lead cross-team initiatives from design through deployment.
• Write maintainable, well-tested, high-quality code.
• Maintain Service Level Objectives for the Identity Platform.
• Foster a strong engineering culture through mentorship.

Skills

JVM-based languages

Distributed systems

DevOps practices

CI/CD pipelines

Cloud environments

OAuth 2.0

OpenID Connect

Job description

The M&S Identity team is looking for a Staff 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.

What's in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We're an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special...

• After completing your probationary period, you'll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

What you'll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Influence the technical direction of the Identity Platform and shape our long-term architecture. Design solutions that improve the M&S Identity Platform, provides excellent user authentication experience to our customers and great developer experience to our engineers
• Lead and contribute to cross-team initiatives from design through deployment and operations
• Write maintainable, well-tested, high-quality code and uphold engineering best practices
• Focus on observability and maintain Service Level Objectives, take operational responsibility for the Identity Platform, including joining the on-call rota
• Foster a strong engineering culture through mentorship, code reviews, and collaboration
• Lead by example in producing high-quality documentation, including architecture, design, operational, and technical documentation
• Work closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Engineers across M&S to design elegant, scalable solutions
• Assist with recruiting and onboarding new engineers.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• 8+ years of experience building and scaling distributed systems, ideally serving millions of users
• Deep expertise 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

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.

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