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Staff Software Engineer 🇦🇺 (Python/Django)

Evolve Energy

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Software Engineering

Melbourne VIC, Australia · Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Posted on Tuesday, January 23, 2024

About Octopus Energy and Kraken

Since 2015, Octopus has been on a mission to bring affordable, green energy to the world. With the help of our in-house technology platform, Kraken, we’ve become the 2nd largest energy supplier in the UK, opened retailers in seven other countries, and licensed our software to retail giants including E.ON and EDF in the UK, Origin Energy in Australia and Tokyo Gas in Japan. We’ve reinvented energy products with smart, data-driven tariffs to balance customer demand with renewable generation - and we’re the biggest investor in renewable generation in the UK.

We've since expanded globally and are now looking for a Staff Software Engineer, based in Australia. Our main hub is in Melbourne but it's not a requirement to work there.

We're looking for someone with a general interest in technology and problem-solving; someone diligent and thoughtful. As a staff engineer level hire into the team you will have a big impact on strategy and cross-functional collaboration with other teams and business areas, as well as mentoring your colleagues. Working with Kraken is a chance to join an exciting scale-up business within the energy supply sector, one that’s changing the landscape of the energy industry across the world.

Our team and our tech

All technology is written and maintained by a global, multi-disciplinary team of around 500 engineers. This includes server-side, client-side and mobile engineers working closely with UX experts, copywriters and designers. We’re low on process, with a high level of trust given to individuals.

Most of our server-side applications are written in Python. The Kraken platform is built using Django and Celery, and makes extensive use of GraphQL and REST APIs.

We use an immutable infrastructure approach to manage our AWS environments. We heavily use EKS, RDS Aurora, AmazonMQ, S3 and EventBridge in our platform architecture. We practise continuous deployment and release new versions of Kraken around 200 times per day.

Engineering standards are high. We pair program, thoroughly review and test code before it deploys, and maintain fast, high-value test suites. We have weekly tech talks, a day a month devoted to sharpening our internal tools, upgrading dependencies, paying off technical debt - we call it “spa day” - and we can often be found at tech meet-ups and conferences.

Many of our coding conventions are open-source and we maintain a tech blog. Kraken is a great place to learn, work with some talented engineers and level-up your skills.

What you'll do...

Drive architectural and system design decisions across the engineering team. The energy market is complicated, outdated, and process-heavy - there's an awful lot of domain modelling that we need to get right. Strong attention to detail is essential.
Take ownership of critical parts of the product, ensuring their reliability and scalability. For example, Kraken processes millions of smart meter readings a day, so there are many difficult technical problems to solve.
Influence strategic technical decision making.
Lead large, strategic engineering initiatives.
Work cross-functionally, collaborating with different team leaders and engineering professionals from other business areas.
Be a role model and mentor to your colleagues, including Senior Engineers.
Help build and scale the Kraken team by embedding an engineering, problem solving, and customer-first culture.
Architect & develop new components of the Kraken platform to serve other utilities.
Work for a company that’s fighting climate change. Our parent company is the largest investor in solar generation in the UK and is funding wind and anaerobic digestion. As a supplier, we're helping people to use greener technology and renewable energy, all helping move the world towards a lower carbon future.

What tech stack you'll have (in rough priority order)

Python
Django (or equiv. web framework)
Domain modelling
HTTP and REST APIs
Writing robust and fault-tolerant software
Celery and async processing
Postgres

Plus experience in the following would be a bonus:

AWS
Terraform, Packer, Consul
React and Redux

What you will love about us

Our company culture - We are organisation where people learn, decide, and build quicker. Where people work with autonomy, alongside a wide range of amazing co-owners, on projects that break new ground. We want your hard work to be rewarded with perks you actually care about! We won best company to work for in 2022, on Glassdoor we were voted 50 best places to work in 2022 and our Group CEO, Greg has recorded a podcast about our culture and how we empower our people.
Flexible working environment - genuine work life balance here, we are in the top 5 companies in the UK, we treat you as a human, and do our best to make work and life merge smoothly together
Equity Options Scheme - you own your own part of the business, share options in the whole Octopus Energy Group so we all work together towards success
Office - have a certain tech requirement? We’ll do our best to get it. We also have drinks, snacks and a coffee machine at the WeWork office space.
Your development is important - we support and help with development including internal and external courses, learning, study support etc, all bespoke to you

We would prefer someone who can work in our Melbourne office hybrid / remote of 1-2 days a week onsite but it's not a deal breaker. You do need to have the rights to work in Australia.

We're very excited to be growing our team. We're looking for skills and experience to help shape and define the future of not only our team, but the wider business at a global scale. If you're reading this and grinning, please apply! There are huge challenges to tackle, and we need amazing people who are keen to get stuck in.