Scale Engineer

Senior Software Engineer

Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time

London - The River Building HQGBP 120k – 180k6d ago
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Role

What you'll do.

Senior Backend Engineer at Deliveroo building high-performance, low-latency systems that power internal support tools at global scale. You'll architect and maintain scalable Golang services supporting millions of conversations monthly, collaborate across product and design teams, and lead technical decision-making for infrastructure serving 60+ countries. This role requires 7+ years of software engineering experience with 2+ years of production Golang expertise and deep knowledge of distributed systems, databases (SQL/NoSQL), and operational reliability.

Responsibilities

  • Build and Maintain High-Throughput Backend Services: Design, develop, and maintain production-grade backend services in Go that handle millions of concurrent requests. Optimize for low-latency performance and implement caching strategies, connection pooling, and other performance optimization techniques to support Deliveroo's global support infrastructure processing approximately 5 million conversations monthly.
  • Lead Architectural Design and Technical Decision-Making: Participate in and lead architectural discussions for distributed systems, making informed technology choices for scalability and reliability. Mentor junior engineers on system design patterns, help establish technical standards, and drive best practices for backend development across the Support Engineering team.
  • Design Scalable and Resilient Systems: Architect distributed systems that scale seamlessly as Deliveroo expands from 30 to 60+ countries. Design for high availability, fault tolerance, and graceful degradation. Implement circuit breakers, retry logic, load balancing strategies, and other resilience patterns to ensure support tools remain operational during peak demand periods.
  • Collaborate Across Cross-Functional Teams: Work closely with product managers, UX designers, and frontend engineers to translate requirements into scalable backend solutions. Participate in design reviews, provide technical feasibility assessments, and ensure backend systems support seamless customer, courier, and merchant support experiences globally.
  • Ensure Code Quality and Testing Standards: Write well-tested, maintainable code following established quality standards and design patterns. Implement comprehensive unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end test coverage. Conduct code reviews, establish testing best practices, and contribute to continuous improvement of engineering practices within the team.
  • On-Call Support and Incident Management: Participate in on-call rotations for production systems, responding to incidents with pragmatic problem-solving and root cause analysis. Implement monitoring, alerting, and observability solutions to detect issues proactively. Document lessons learned and drive preventative improvements to system reliability.

Qualifications

What we look for.

Technical

  • Golang Production Experience

    2+ years of hands-on production experience developing backend systems in Go. Demonstrated expertise in concurrent programming patterns, goroutines, channels, context management, and Go standard library. Ability to write efficient, idiomatic Go code and mentor others on language best practices.

  • Distributed Systems Design

    Solid understanding of designing, building, and operating low-latency, high-throughput distributed systems. Experience with microservices architectures, service-to-service communication protocols (REST, gRPC), and patterns like load balancing, circuit breaking, and eventual consistency.

  • Database Design and Optimization

    Strong hands-on experience with both SQL (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL databases (particularly Cassandra). Proficiency in data modeling, query optimization, indexing strategies, replication, consistency models, and distributed database concepts. Experience selecting appropriate database technologies for specific use cases.

  • System Reliability and Operations

    Previous on-call experience with pragmatic approach to reliability and incident management. Familiarity with observability practices including logging, metrics, and distributed tracing. Understanding of SLI/SLO frameworks, incident response procedures, and operational excellence principles for high-availability systems.

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field

    Formal education in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent discipline providing foundation in algorithms, data structures, and computer systems. Alternatively, equivalent industry experience and demonstrated mastery of core computer science fundamentals.

  • Continuous Learning in Modern Backend Development

    Demonstrated commitment to staying current with evolving backend development practices, cloud infrastructure technologies, and distributed systems patterns. Evidence of learning through coursework, certifications, or hands-on exploration of new technologies relevant to backend engineering.

Experience

  • Senior-Level Software Engineering

    7+ years of professional software engineering experience demonstrating career progression. Proven track record of designing, architecting, and scaling complex systems from conception through production. Experience mentoring junior engineers and leading technical initiatives across teams.

  • Backend System Architecture

    Track record of building and scaling backend systems that handle significant load and complexity. Experience making architectural trade-offs, managing technical debt, and implementing solutions that balance performance, maintainability, and business requirements.

  • Production Operations Experience

    Experience supporting and maintaining production systems in operational environments. Familiarity with deployment pipelines, infrastructure management, and operational troubleshooting. Comfortable debugging production issues and optimizing system performance under real-world conditions.

Skills

Required

  • Go (Golang)

    Advanced proficiency in Go programming language with deep understanding of concurrency patterns, memory management, and Go-specific idioms. Able to write production-grade code optimizing for performance and maintainability.

  • SQL Databases

    Expert-level experience with relational databases including query optimization, schema design, transaction management, and performance tuning. Capable of designing efficient schemas and writing complex queries for data retrieval and manipulation.

  • NoSQL Databases

    Hands-on expertise with NoSQL database systems, particularly Cassandra. Understanding of document stores, key-value stores, and wide-column databases. Knowledge of eventual consistency models and distributed database characteristics.

  • Distributed Systems Architecture

    Comprehensive understanding of designing scalable distributed systems including CAP theorem, consistency models, microservices patterns, service discovery, and inter-service communication protocols. Experience managing complexity in distributed environments.

  • API Design and Development

    Expertise in designing and implementing RESTful APIs and modern API patterns. Understanding of API versioning, backwards compatibility, and scaling considerations for high-traffic endpoints serving both internal and external consumers.

  • System Design and Scalability

    Ability to architect systems for scale, considering throughput requirements, latency constraints, and resource utilization. Experience with horizontal scaling, database sharding, caching strategies, and load distribution techniques.

  • Code Quality and Testing

    Commitment to writing well-tested code with comprehensive unit and integration test coverage. Experience establishing and maintaining high code quality standards across teams through code reviews and best practice evangelism.

  • Incident Management and On-Call Operations

    Experience responding to production incidents with systematic debugging and problem-solving. Comfortable participating in on-call rotations and implementing solutions for rapid incident detection and resolution.

Preferred

  • Node.js / JavaScript Backend Development

    Nice to have

    Experience developing backend systems using Node.js or other server-side JavaScript frameworks. Knowledge of async/await patterns, event-driven architectures, and JavaScript runtime characteristics valuable for diverse technology environments.

  • Cloud Infrastructure (AWS, GCP)

    Nice to have

    Hands-on experience deploying and managing applications on AWS or Google Cloud Platform. Familiarity with managed services like Lambda, Cloud Run, database offerings, and infrastructure-as-code tools for automated deployment and scaling.

  • Event-Driven Architectures

    Nice to have

    Experience designing and implementing event-driven systems using message brokers, pub-sub patterns, and event sourcing. Knowledge of technologies like Kafka, RabbitMQ, or cloud-native messaging services for asynchronous communication at scale.

  • Monitoring, Observability, and Performance Optimization

    Nice to have

    Experience implementing comprehensive monitoring solutions, distributed tracing, and performance profiling. Familiarity with tools like Prometheus, Datadog, or Jaeger for observability. Proven ability to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks in production systems.

  • gRPC and Protocol Buffers

    Nice to have

    Experience building high-performance service-to-service communication using gRPC and Protocol Buffers. Understanding of advantages over REST for internal APIs, including reduced latency and bandwidth efficiency for high-throughput systems.

  • Container Orchestration and DevOps

    Nice to have

    Familiarity with containerization technologies (Docker) and orchestration platforms (Kubernetes). Experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and infrastructure-as-code practices that enable rapid, safe deployments.

Tech stack

Languages

Go (Golang)SQL

Frameworks

gRPCREST APIs

Databases

CassandraPostgreSQLRedisMySQL

Tools

KubernetesDockerGit / GitHubPrometheusDatadog

Other

Distributed TracingEvent-Driven ArchitectureMicroservices ArchitectureCloud Platforms (AWS, GCP)

Compensation

Pay and benefits.

Base·GBP 120,000 – 180,000

Equity·Stock options

Benefits

  • Comprehensive Healthcare Coverage

    Country-specific health insurance benefits covering medical, dental, and vision care. Deliveroo prioritizes employee wellness with premium healthcare packages tailored to regional requirements.

  • Competitive Pension and Retirement Planning

    Employer-matched pension contributions supporting long-term financial security. Company contributions to retirement savings plans exceeding regional minimums, enabling employees to plan for future financial stability.

  • Generous Annual Leave and Time Off

    Substantial annual vacation allowances exceeding industry standards. Additional paid time off to support charitable causes of your choice, enabling work-life balance and community contribution.

  • Parental Leave and Family Support

    Comprehensive parental leave policies for mothers, fathers, and adoptive parents. Support programs recognizing that employees have diverse family structures and life circumstances.

  • Well-Being Initiatives and Mental Health Support

    Proactive well-being programs including mental health resources, fitness subsidies, and wellness activities. Commitment to creating a supportive workplace culture recognizing employee mental and physical health.

  • Professional Development and Learning Opportunities

    Support for continuous learning through training budgets, conference attendance, and mentorship programs. Investment in employee growth and career development within a rapidly expanding technology company.

  • Inclusive and Diverse Workplace Culture

    Commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion across all organizational levels. Workplace accommodations and adjustments ensuring equitable opportunity for all candidates regardless of background or circumstances.

Full posting

Original listing.

About the team

Engineering the future of customer support — at global scale 🌍

We believe exceptional customer service is more than just a feature, it’s a fundamental part of who we are. That’s why we’ve built our own internal support tooling from the ground up, tailored to help our customer, courier, and merchant support teams shine in every interaction.

As we scale our operations from 30 to 60 countries, supporting millions of users and partners, our internal tools need to scale with us. The Support Engineering group is at the heart of this mission. We build high-performance admin applications and core operational tools that empower our support teams to work smarter and faster. A key part of this is our in-house chat platform, which already handles around 5 million conversations every month. On top of this foundation, we’re developing advanced features to reduce manual work, improve communication, and proactively resolve issues — often before our users even notice them.

Our systems range from automated reach-outs for delayed orders to deeply integrated tools that enable our support teams to deliver assistance quickly, reliably, and with a human touch. By removing inefficiencies and automating repetitive tasks, we’re ensuring that our users and partners receive world-class support at scale.

 

About the role

We’re now looking for a Senior Backend Engineer (Golang) to join us in building scalable, low-latency systems that power these tools and shape the future of customer support. You’ll work on impactful products that directly influence how millions of people experience our platform every day.

What you'll be doing

  • Build and maintain high-throughput backend services using Go.

  • Collaborate with product managers, designers, and frontend developers to ship features that support internal support agents across the globe.

  • Design systems that are scalable, resilient, and easy to maintain.

  • Lead and contribute to architectural discussions and technical decision-making.

  • Write well-tested code and help the team maintain high code quality standards.

Requirements

  • 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of building and scaling complex systems.

  • 2+ years of production experience in Golang, with the ability to mentor others and drive best practices across the team.

  • Strong hands-on experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases — especially Cassandra.

  • Solid understanding of designing and operating low-latency, high-throughput distributed systems.

  • Previous on-call experience, with a pragmatic approach to reliability and incident management.

Nice to have

  • Background in Node.js or other backend languages.

  • Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP) and event-driven architectures.

Why Deliveroo

Our mission is to transform the way you shop and eat, bringing the neighbourhood to your door by connecting consumers, restaurants, shops and riders. We are transforming the way the world eats and shops by making access to food and products more convenient and enjoyable. We give people the opportunity to buy what they want, as they want it, when and where they want it.

We are a technology-driven company at the forefront of the most rapidly expanding industry in the world. We are still a small team, making a very large impact, looking to answer some of the most interesting questions out there. We move fast, value autonomy and ownership, and we are always looking for new ideas.

Workplace & Benefits

At Deliveroo we know that people are the heart of the business and we prioritise their welfare. Benefits differ by country, but we offer many benefits in areas including healthcare, well-being, parental leave, pensions, and generous annual leave allowances, including time off to support a charitable cause of your choice. Benefits are country-specific, please ask your recruiter for more information.

Diversity

At Deliveroo, we believe a great workplace is one that represents the world we live in and how beautifully diverse it can be. That means we have no judgement when it comes to any one of the things that make you who you are - your gender, race, sexuality, religion or a secret aversion to coriander. All you need is a passion for (most) food and a desire to be part of one of the fastest-growing businesses in a rapidly growing industry.

We are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our hiring process. We recognise that some candidates may require adjustments to apply for a position or fairly participate in the interview process. If you require any adjustments, please don't hesitate to let us know. We will make every effort to provide the necessary adjustments to ensure you have an equitable opportunity to succeed.

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