Senior Software Engineer

Salary | £60,000 - £85,000

Hybrid | Manchester (3 days per week)

We're looking for a senior software engineer to join our growing team at sprintworks, based at the GM Digital Security Hub (DiSH) in Manchester.

You'll design, build and run secure web applications in TypeScript on AWS, from the first client conversation to release. You'll often work on more than one project at a time, alongside our in-house engineers, designers and the clients themselves. As well as building, you'll have a real say in our technical strategy and how we deliver.

We'll shape the role around you. From day one, we'll work out together where your strengths and experience fit best, so the role grows from what you bring.

What the role involves:

• Client delivery. Own the relationship with your clients. You'll be their main point of contact and represent sprintworks from the first conversation to release, gathering requirements, turning them into technical plans and keeping clients updated throughout. You won't do this alone: the wider team will support you at every stage.
• Engineering. Write and review TypeScript code, using AI tools to work faster while you stay in charge of every decision. Use other languages, such as Rust, when they’re the right fit for the project. Deploy and run services on AWS.
• Security. Build security into every stage, from design and code review to testing and release, following OWASP guidance (the industry standard for web application security). Automating security best practice and suggesting improvements across the project and organisation.
• Architecture: Designing systems by piecing together the right technologies and design patterns for each job, drawing on a broad understanding of them all. Making the calls that balance delivery pace with long-term maintainability, then talking clients and colleagues through the trade-offs in plain terms.
• Mentoring. Supporting the team and support the wider business with your expertise, through code review, pairing and regular feedback. We’re looking for someone who is curious, creative and driven.
• Thinking ahead. Questioning how we do things today and helping set the engineering standards we keep as we grow.
• Sharing what we learn. When a project teaches us something worth passing on, it becomes a blog or technical article and, where there's a good fit, a talk at an industry event representing sprintworks.

What you’ll do:

As you progress at sprintworks your responsibilities may change as we continue to grow. Right now, they will look like this:

Build and ship:

• Writing secure, well-tested code with users in mind.
• Owning features from the first conversation through to release.
• Making architectural calls that balance delivery pace with maintainability, and explaining the trade-offs.

Enable the team:

• Clearing blockers so other engineers can keep moving.
• Mentor the whole team and support the wider business with your expertise, through code review, pairing and advice whenever it’s needed.
• Sharing knowledge and setting good practice across the team.

Think ahead:

• Questioning how we do things today and proposing better ways.
• Contributing to our technical strategy and direction.
• Help set our technical direction for AI tooling: which tools we use, how we use them securely, and where a person must review and sign off the output.
• Helping set the engineering standards we hold ourselves to as we scale.

Represent and educate:

• Representing sprintworks at industry events, meetups and conferences where there's a good fit.
• Write thought-leadership blogs and technical articles about the work you’ve done, explaining complex topics clearly so clients, the wider industry and our own team can learn from them.

Security first, users always:

• Making user experience part of every technical decision.
• Building security in from the start, not as a check at the end.
• Doing things the right way, not only the fast way.

Who we’re looking for:

We're looking for a senior software engineer who's curious about where technology is heading, especially as AI changes how software is built. You use AI to work faster, but never in place of your own judgement. We don't hire vibe coders (people who ship AI-generated code without understanding it). You know what safe, secure and performant software looks like, and you make sure everything you ship meets that standard. You think about security from the start. You spot vulnerabilities and edge cases before they reach users.

Engineering:

• You have strong engineering fundamentals and a record of shipping production software.
• You think about security from the start. You spot vulnerabilities and edge cases before they reach users.
• Pragmatic judgement: knowing when to build, when to use what already exists, and when to wait.
• You follow where technology is heading, from AI to cloud security, and you want to help shape it.

Learning:

• Picking things up quickly, without cutting corners.
• Comfortable when the answer isn't clear yet, and honest about what's not known.
• Ready to step outside a usual area, with the team's support behind every step.

People:

• Caring about clients and colleagues, and showing it in the work.
• Collaborating in a way that makes the whole team better.
• Challenging ideas and welcoming challenge in return, always in service of a better outcome.
• You’d rather shape your role than follow a fixed job spec.

Leadership:

• A natural mentor who enjoys helping other engineers grow. There are no immediate line management responsibilities.
• Leading by example and influencing through expertise.
• Taking initiative and ownership without needing a title to do it.

Technical requirements

• Strong, hands-on coding experience in TypeScript, and/or other prominent languages.
• Evidence of building large-scale platforms that stay secure, reliable and maintainable as they grow: researching, assessing and combining the right technologies for each client, with the grasp of design patterns and architecture to judge whether code is right, not just whether it runs.
• Experience using AI tools to work faster, while reviewing, testing and owning everything they produce.
• Bonus: private cloud experience, including Kubernetes (for running containerised applications) and virtualised environments.
• A solid understanding of AWS, including EC2 (virtual servers), S3 (file storage), Lambda (serverless functions) and RDS (managed databases). Experience with other cloud providers, such as Azure or Google Cloud, is also welcome.
• A solid understanding of web security, including the OWASP Top 10 (the most common web security risks) and threat modelling (spotting how a system could be attacked) with frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK. You’ve built and tested secure software, including authentication and authorisation.
• Experience with CI/CD, DevOps and automated testing setup.
• Experience in C++, Rust or Python is a bonus.

About sprintworks

sprintworks is a software engineering and technology consultancy based in Manchester. Our founders come from the defence and public sectors, where security, reliability and trust are requirements, not extras. We're Cyber Essentials Plus certified, the UK government-backed standard with our security controls independently tested. We deliver across AI, cyber security, software development, cloud and infrastructure. We use AI in our work, but we're not AI-driven: there's always a person behind what we build.

• Trust. We don't ask people to trust us. We show them they can, through evidence, security, transparency and how we work.
• Security first. Security is never traded away to move faster.
• Human led. We listen, build with intent and make the decisions that matter ourselves.
• Think ahead. We look at where the industry is heading, not only where it's been.

Working at sprintworks.

• Be yourself. We'd rather know the real you than a work version of you. We make time to get to know each other, and everyone is welcome as they are.
• A role that works for you. Flexible working, and a role shaped around your strengths, your experience and your life outside work.
• Your voice, heard. Good ideas come from everywhere, whatever someone's title. Challenge goes in every direction, because that's how we reach better outcomes.
• Room to show what you know. Your knowledge, experience and expertise have a real place here: on client projects, in our technical direction and in what we share with the wider industry.
• Looking after each other. If something's affecting you, at work or outside it, you can talk to us and we'll work it out together.
• One team. Engineering, design, delivery and the people talking to clients every day work closely together, and everyone's contribution counts.
• Learning in the open. When something goes wrong, we say so, work out why and carry the lesson forward together.

What we offer:

• Hybrid and flexible working with 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday, exclusive of breaks, with flexible start and finish times and core hours of 10:00-16:00.
• Annual leave of 25 days plus bank holidays.
• Employer pension contribution of 5%.
• A referral bonus when you introduce someone we hire or a new client.
• Private health insurance and mental health support.
• Team building activities anchored around our team's interests every two months.
• Seasonal team activities and off-site visits.
• A training budget for courses, certifications and conferences.

Growing with us

Growth looks different for everyone: promotion, broader experience or deeper technical expertise. Every team member has a learning budget, and we support extra qualifications that build on their career.

Everyone is welcome

We welcome applications from everyone, including people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, religions and beliefs, sexual orientations and disabilities, neurodivergent people, people with caring responsibilities and people who came into tech by a non-traditional route. If you need any adjustments during the process, just let us know and we'll arrange them.

If this is the role for you, please send your CV to careers@sprintworks.dev and our Business Operations Manager will be in touch.