Software Engineer

Location: London
Posted: 2D AGO

About the role

Ship real things for real families from week one. Own features end to end, grow fast, and get handed more of the system every quarter.

About the role

When someone dies, their family inherits a mountain of admin. A will is the single most useful thing that makes it smaller, but only if it’s correct, current and actually says what the person meant. That’s the bar our code has to clear, every time.

As a software engineer, you’ll own features from the first conversation to production. You won’t get a ticket with the answer already written on it. You’ll get a problem, the context behind it, and someone to think it through with.

The scope you own grows as fast as you do. Small team, lots of surface area: if you want more responsibility, it’s there to take.

The team

Engineering is small but mighty, and growing. You’ll work alongside Product, Design and the legal specialists who know every edge case by heart. You’ll join the team where you can make the most difference as roles fill, and you’ll have a say in where that is.

We work in small, stable teams that own a product area end to end, from the first conversation with legal to the alert that fires if it breaks. Nobody hands you a ticket and walks away. Teams decide how to solve the problems in front of them, and often which problems are worth solving at all. Decisions are written down, reviewed kindly and revisited when we learn something new.

We’re AI-native. Frontier models, best-in-class agentic tooling, and nobody counts tokens. That pushes the job away from boilerplate and towards the parts that need a person: architecture, judgement, and getting the detail right. Families come to us for a will or for probate, not for software, so we’re not racing the models. Every time they improve, so does the service families get. We ship to production 20+ times a day across 7+ services.

What you’ll do

Most weeks are a mix of building, reviewing and learning the domain. Some of the work you’ll pick up:

Build features end to end: the API, the data model, the UI if it needs one, and the tests that keep it honest.
Turn a family’s answers into correct, signed documents, edge cases included.
Use agentic tools to move fast, and review what they write as carefully as you’d review a colleague.
Own what you ship in production. Dashboards, alerts and the occasional fix are yours.
Bring opinions to design reviews. We’d rather hear the half-formed idea than miss it.

Your first 90 days

Week one: first PR in production, paired with someone who knows the codebase.
Ship a feature you scoped yourself, from first conversation to customers.
Know a corner of the system well enough that people bring their questions about it to you.
Spot something that bugs you about how we work and fix it, without asking permission.

What we’re looking for

We care more about how you approach problems than a list of keywords. That said, here’s what tends to make someone successful in this role.

You’ll need

A few years building and shipping production software. The language matters less than how you use it.
You write tests that describe behaviour, not implementation.
Comfort with relational data models and SQL.
Curiosity about agentic coding, and the discipline to check its work.

Nice to have

Python or TypeScript in production.
Serverless on AWS: Lambda, API Gateway, the lot.
Experience in a regulated domain: legal, financial or health.

Don’t tick every box? Apply anyway. We hire for how you think, not a checklist.

What you’ll work with

Languages: Python 3.12, TypeScript
Backend: FastAPI
Frontend: Next.js
Serverless: AWS Lambda
Data: PostgreSQL
Infra: Terraform, AWS, GCP
Quality: pytest, Ruff, mypy
Review: humans, Greptile
Agents: Claude Code, Cursor, whatever you’re fastest in
Observe: CloudWatch, Sentry

The honest bits

Every codebase has them. Better you hear it from us.

Debt: Part of our estate is a PHP service we’re migrating off. You might be the one who retires it.
Rope: You’ll get responsibility earlier than you might elsewhere. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable. We’ll back you through it.
Regs: Regulated, sensitive data. Some changes need a second pair of eyes from legal, and that’s on purpose.
Pace: We ship often, but “move fast and break things” isn’t an option when the thing is someone’s will.

You’ll probably enjoy this if

You want to own outcomes, not just close tickets.
You learn fastest by shipping something and seeing what happens.
You can talk about death plainly. Our users are planning for it or living through it.

What we offer

Listed, not teased. If something matters to you and isn’t here, ask in your first call.

Holiday: 27 days + bank holidays + your birthday
Pension: 3% contribution
Working pattern: Hybrid. In the office Tuesday to Thursday at Monument, London
Contract: Permanent
Learning: Time carved out for it, plus budget agreed case by case
A will, on us: A free will for you, and a discount for friends and family
Tools: Whatever makes you fastest. Frontier models, agentic tooling, no token budget.
Ownership: Real decisions from week one. You’ll be trusted with the call and backed when it’s hard.

How we’ll get to know each other

Four stages, about two weeks end to end. You’ll hear back within two working days of each one, whatever the outcome.

1. Intro call (30 min, video)
A relaxed conversation with the hiring manager about what you’ve worked on and what you’re looking for. Ask us anything.
You’ll meet the hiring manager. Nothing to prepare.

2. Meet our People team (30 min, video)
A conversation about how you like to work, what you need from a team to do your best work, and the practical stuff: start dates, adjustments, anything you’re unsure about.
You’ll meet our People team. Nothing to prepare.

3. Pairing and design (~2.5 hours, on site)
Two parts, with the people you’d work with. First, pair on a real-shaped problem on your own laptop with your own tools. Look things up, use agents, think out loud. Then sketch a small system together and talk through the trade-offs. We care how you reason, not whether you’ve built this exact thing before. No take-home, no trick questions.
You’ll meet the team. Bring your laptop; we’ll send setup notes in advance.

4. Final conversation (45 min, video)
Meet our founder. Talk about where Octopus Legacy is going, where you’d fit in it, and anything you still want to know. It runs both ways.
You’ll meet our founder. Bring your questions.

Decision (within two working days)
A clear yes or no, with written feedback either way, from the hiring manager. If it’s a yes, we’ll talk through the offer on a call. No exploding deadlines.

About Octopus Legacy

Octopus Legacy is the place to plan for death and find support after loss. We were founded after our founder’s mum died suddenly, and we’re a group of people who work in death because we’ve been affected by it. We help people write a will, set up a trust or a Lasting Power of Attorney, and protect the people they love. When someone dies, we help their family with probate and the practical, personal and emotional challenges that come after. We’re part of Octopus Group, alongside Octopus Energy and Octopus Investments.

Octopus Legacy is committed to creating an inclusive environment and is proud to be an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone. If you need any adjustments at any stage, tell us and we’ll make them, no explanation needed.

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