Senior Backend Developer

Cresset provides solutions for chemists in world-leading research organisations to discover, design, optimise, synthesise and track the best small molecules. We help them reach better design and synthesis decisions, faster and more efficiently, enabling them to win the race to success in industries including pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, flavours and fragrances.

• Passionate about developing exceptional applications and solving complex technical problems.
• Someone who enjoys taking ownership of projects and delivering high-quality software with minimal supervision.
• A collaborative developer who enjoys sharing knowledge, mentoring others and working across functional areas.
• Interested in evaluating new technologies and staying current with industry developments.
• Comfortable making technical decisions and helping guide the technical direction of products and services.

• Develop drug discovery cloud services, APIs and web applications using Python backend services including FastAPI and Django.
• Design and build reliable REST APIs and services for applications, automated pipelines and AI workflows.
• Deliver complex software projects with minimal supervision and take ownership of active projects at an early stage.
• Use AI coding assistants thoughtfully, ensuring AI-generated code meets the same standards of review, testing and verification as all other code.
• Make architectural decisions and guide technical direction to build scalable, highly available systems.
• Contribute to the deployment, hosting, monitoring and operation of cloud services in production, working closely with Dev Ops colleagues.
• Champion software engineering best practices including testing, CI/CD, code review and documentation.
• Mentor other developers and share knowledge across functional areas.
• Identify and implement continuous improvements that reduce technical debt and improve maintainability and delivery speed.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and technical decisions effectively with colleagues, senior leaders, collaborators and customers.
• Work within an Agile environment, contributing to user story refinement, estimation and technical delivery.

• Demonstrable commercial software development experience, including Python backend services.
• Product development experience using technologies such as FastAPI, Django, Git, Linux environments and containerised deployment with Docker and AWS.
• Experience designing and building production REST APIs, including API contracts, versioning and documentation.
• Experience of testing methodologies including unit, integration, system and end-to-end testing, alongside continuous integration practices.
• Strong understanding of system design, including distributed, scalable and highly available architectures.
• Practical experience using AI coding assistants, with sound judgement on how to use them safely and effectively.
• Strong passion and desire to develop exceptional applications.
• Advocate of contemporary software development best practices.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills, including experience mentoring other developers.
• Degree-level qualification or equivalent industrial experience.
• A commitment to the Cresset values of Integrity, Excellence and Collaboration.

• Infrastructure-as-code and Dev Ops experience.
• Experience with scientific, research or life-sciences software, or integrating long-running computational workloads.
• Front-end development experience using Type Script and Vue.js.
• Experience with SaaS service hosting and operations, including observability, security and cost management.

• Hybrid working for most roles
• Modern rural offices, with a free shuttle to and from Royston…