Staff Software Engineer - Payments Platform

Marks and Spencer; City Of London; On-site; GBP 95,000 - 135,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Colleague discount

Holiday allowance

Discretionary bonus schemes

Pension & life assurance

Induction and training

Choice portal perks

Family policies

Wellbeing support

Volunteer day

Job summary

Marks & Spencer is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for our Payments Platform to shape and evolve our payment ecosystem across stores and digital channels. You will lead design and delivery of secure, scalable payment capabilities and mentor engineers to raise engineering standards.

You’ll work with architects and engineering leaders to align payment systems with business strategy, drive DevOps, CI/CD, and observability, and own reliability during peak trading periods.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering experience with Java; able to choose right tech for complex problems.
• Extensive experience operating large-scale cloud-based platforms (Azure/AWS/GCP).
• Knowledge of platform engineering, SRE principles, observability and monitoring tools.
• Experience implementing CI/CD practices and DevOps tooling (GitHub Actions, pipelines).
• Passion for engineering quality, testing, mentoring, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end payment platform outcomes across key products, ensuring reliability and security at scale.
• Lead design and delivery of complex payment capabilities for secure, scalable solutions.
• Shape technical direction and architecture of payment systems with architects and leaders.
• Drive engineering excellence through DevOps, automation, and incident management.
• Mentor engineers through coaching, code reviews and knowledge sharing.

Skills

Java

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

Mentoring

Observability

Tools

GitHub Actions

Azure

AWS

GCP

Dynatrace

Job description

All the details

As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you'll be joining a well-loved British brand at an exciting stage of its transformation into a digital-first, engineering-led organisation. Our technology powers experiences for millions of customers and thousands of colleagues, with engineering excellence at the heart of our success.

We're looking for a passionate Staff Software Engineer - Payments Platform to help shape and evolve our payment ecosystem, supporting critical transaction journeys across stores and digital channels. You'll combine deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, leading the design and delivery of scalable, secure and resilient payment solutions while mentoring engineers and driving engineering best practice. The ideal candidate will have strong cloud and platform engineering experience, a passion for operational excellence, and a proven ability to solve complex technical challenges in high-volume environments.

What you'll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Own end-to-end payment platform outcomes across key payment products, ensuring reliability, security, performance and resilience during peak trading periods.
• Lead the design and delivery of complex payment capabilities, making high-quality technical decisions that result in secure, scalable and maintainable solutions.
• Shape the technical direction and architecture of payment systems, working closely with architects and engineering leaders to align with business and technology strategy.
• Drive engineering excellence through DevOps, automation, operational improvements and incident management, reducing repeat failures and improving service performance.
• Mentor and support engineers through coaching, code reviews and knowledge sharing, helping to build strong payment domain expertise across the engineering community.

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• Strong software engineering experience with Java preferred, alongside the ability to select the right technologies and approaches for complex business problems.
• Deep expertise operating large-scale cloud-based platforms and high-traffic applications, with experience across Azure (preferred), AWS or GCP.
• Strong understanding of platform engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, observability and monitoring tools such as Dynatrace or equivalent.
• Experience implementing CI/CD practices and modern DevOps tooling, ideally including GitHub Actions and automated delivery pipelines.
• A passion for engineering quality, testing, mentoring others and driving continuous improvement across teams and platforms.

Our Tech

• Java
• Azure (preferred), AWS and GCP
• GitHub Actions
• Dynatrace
• CI/CD and DevOps toolchains
• Cloud infrastructure and platform engineering
• Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
• CDN, DNS and Edge Computing technologies
• Observability and monitoring platforms

What's in it for you?

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We're inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 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.