Principal Software Engineer

About Us

Since 2016, Patchwork Health has been on a mission to make truly flexible and sustainable working a reality for all healthcare staff. Their fully integrated workforce management solution helps optimise outcomes for organisations, managers, staff and patients alike. Built by a team of dedicated healthcare veterans, and co-created with the NHS, their technology and services have been embraced by over 100 healthcare sites to date.

Patchwork offers a range of different solutions, including temporary staff banks, which enable organisations to source temporary staff from their own pool of approved workers; ‘collaborative staff banks’, which help healthcare organisations team up with others in the same region to widen and share their temporary staffing pools; an innovative new rostering solution which enables more flexible, sustainable staffing for permanent healthcare staff; and an Agency Manager which makes it easier for managers to select appropriate temporary staff from external agencies when necessary. Patchwork Insights also provides managers with comprehensive data oversight, to monitor staffing trends, shift fill rates and pay rate escalations, and reliably plan ahead to prevent staffing gaps.

Patchwork Health has been recognised as HSJ’s 2022 Staffing Solution of the Year, and have recently received the prestigious HSJ Partnership Award and the Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Award.

The Role

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our growing and passionate Technology Team. Technology at Patchwork is responsible for all activities related to the development and maintenance of the platforms we build.

This role will play a crucial part in decisions and design choices, and in building, implementing, and maintaining our software solutions. We are looking for an experienced Software Engineer to help us migrate our code and culture towards a truly agile environment, with a focus on scalability and feature enablement. 

Responsibilities

• Providing technical leadership and guidance to the wider Technology Team. Being a leader in defining technical strategies and solutions and embedding good practices.
• This role is a leadership position, the role holder is responsible for the development, nurturing, and output of their team and is expected to uphold Patchwork’s standards of excellence.
• Designing and reviewing software architectures for scalability, performance, and maintainability and making technically and contextually informed decisions about technology stack, frameworks, and tools.
• Writing high-quality, clean, and efficient code, developing complex modules and components as needed.
• Leading by example in terms of coding standards, best practices, and design patterns; working collaborating to embed throughout the Technology Team.
• Tackling complex technical challenges and providing innovative solutions, troubleshooting existing codebases and proposing improvements.
• Collaborating cross-departmentally to gather requirements, define project scope, and ensure successful project delivery.
• Communicating effectively with non-technical stakeholders to explain technical concepts and decisions, specifically working closely with Product, building an effective and open relationship.
• Ensuring code quality through testing, code reviews, and continuous integration practices, setting high standards for unit testing, integration testing, and code coverage.
• Project management, such as assisting in planning, estimation, and prioritisation, and providing technical insights to help manage risks and mitigate potential roadblocks.
• Creating and maintaining technical documentation and upholding good standards of technical documentation within the Technology Team.
• Keep up with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices. Evaluate new tools, technologies, and methodologies to drive continuous improvement.

Requirements

Essential

• Demonstrable experience working with agile processes (e.g. pair-programming and TDD) and a history of building a culture suited to fast scaling organisations.
• Proven experience of overseeing a team including coaching and line leadership.
• Proven strategies for identifying, managing, and reducing technical debt.
• Demonstrable experience in architectural decision-making, and in extracting services from a monolith.
• Ability to build infrastructure (i.e., AWS, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD toolchain optimisation).
• Proven polyglot, including at least one of: JVM/Kotlin, Typescript, or Ruby.
• Capable of working full stack.
• Experience owning delivery of atomic features to actual users.
• Strong automated testing practices and quality-focused delivery.
• Eagerness to work with multiple people and be a self-starter.
• Prideful in attention to detail.
• Ability and passion to work in a fast-paced scale-up team environment, embracing its challenges and opportunities.

Nice to Have

• Experience mentoring squad leaders.
• Experience in a tech start-up/scale-up.
• Experience or knowledge of the NHS, healthcare, or healthtech industry.
• Experience or knowledge of workforce applications.
• Qualifications in a related field i.e., Computer Science or Software Engineering (examples).

Benefits

Salary Range: £90,000-115,000

• Hybrid and flexible workplace
• Cycle Scheme
• Tech Loan Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme (Health Assured)
• Personal Learning & Development Budget
• Flexible income options via Stream
• Dog friendly London Hub
• Vibrant and fun London Hub with unlimited refreshments & games
• Access to co-working spaces across the UK

The Small Print

We are unable to provide individual feedback on each application. If you have not heard from us within two weeks, you have not been selected for an interview. We pledge to always provide feedback to applicants who interview with us.

Patchwork is an inclusive employer, and is committed to not only meeting legal requirements and standards, but our own diversity, equality, and inclusivity policies and pledges throughout all stages of the employee lifecycle. For more information on our pledges and policies, please refer to our website or reach out to Patchwork's Talent Team.