Senior Software Engineer - UK

This is a senior role focused on technical leadership, stream-level delivery, and engineering excellence. You ll own complex technical work end-to-end, guide architectural and implementation decisions, mentor engineers across the stream, and help shape how we build software at SourceWhale. While this role remains hands-on, impact is measured not only by the code you write, but by how effectively you improve the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the wider team.

You ll work closely with Product Managers, QA Engineers, Designers, and Software Engineers to deliver scalable, high-quality solutions across a platform that includes:
Python backend services
Svelte/jQuery frontend applications
AWS cloud infrastructure
CRM integrations
Chrome and email extensions
OpenAI-powered workflows and automation
This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving technically complex problems while helping others grow and improving how teams operate.

What You ll Do

• Lead complex technical delivery
• Own the delivery of complex features and systems end-to-end.
• Break ambiguous product problems into scalable technical solutions.
• Balance speed, maintainability, reliability, and customer value in decision-making.
• Guide implementation decisions and technical trade-offs across the stream.
• Drive technical excellence
• Write maintainable, predictable, scalable code.
• Perform thoughtful technical reviews that improve both code quality and engineer capability.
• Shape patterns, standards, and approaches that improve consistency across the stream
• Identify and resolve systemic technical issues, not just isolated bugs.
• Influence architecture & design
• Design efficient, scalable systems with long-term maintainability in mind.
• Evaluate architectural trade-offs across integrations, APIs, infrastructure, and product workflows.
• Anticipate scaling challenges and operational risks early. Contribute to broader engineering discussions through technical leadership and peer influence.
• Mentor & elevate engineers
• Coach junior engineers on implementation, debugging, design patterns, and engineering practices.
• Provide timely, actionable technical feedback.
• Support a culture of collaboration, ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Lead through example by modelling strong engineering judgement and professionalism.
• Improve reliability & operations
• Improve deployment reliability, monitoring, and observability across the stream.
• Participate in and lead production incident response where needed.
• Drive actionable post-mortems and operational improvements.
• Advocate for proactive quality practices that reduce long-term operational risk.
• Collaborate cross-functionally
• Partner closely with Product and QA to ensure the team understands what is being built, why it matters, and how quality is maintained.
• Simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.
• Communicate risks, dependencies, and trade-offs clearly and early.

What We re Looking For

• Strong professional experience with backend development using Python.
• Experience building modern frontend applications Svelte and/or jQuery preferred).
• Strong understanding of APIs, distributed systems, integrations, and Scalable application design.
• Experience working across complex product ecosystems and multiple Technical surfaces.
• Experience with any of the following is beneficial:

• AWS cloud infrastructure
• Browser/email extensions
• CRM integrations
• OpenAI APIs / LLM-powered applications
• Observability and operational tooling

At SourceWhale, Senior Engineers are expected to create impact beyond individual contribution.
You will likely thrive here if you:
Drive impact through technical leadership and execution
Hold high standards for quality, maintainability, and delivery
Coach and elevate engineers around you
Think deeply about systems, scalability, and operational resilience
Communicate clearly and proactively
Take ownership of outcomes, not just tasks
Balance pragmatism with craftsmanship
Care about the product and customer impact behind the work