Senior Software Engineer

Civica builds software that runs essential public services. Our systems support local government, the NHS, housing associations, and financial institutions - services that millions of people depend on every day. When our software works well, caseworkers make better decisions, clinicians access the right information, and councils deliver services that communities rely on.

We're not a startup chasing the next hype cycle. We're a company with deep roots in the public sector, working on problems that matter - and we're investing seriously in how we build software to make sure we can keep doing that for the next decade.

We're hiring Senior Software Engineers to work on business-critical products across our portfolio. You'll be embedded in a product team, working across legacy and greenfield environments, translating ambiguous business problems into production-grade solutions.

We care about engineering judgement - the ability to decompose hard problems, design systems that last, and ship software that works in production. We expect you to use modern tooling, including AI-assisted development, as part of how you work. But the signal we're hiring on is your thinking, not your toolset.

You'll work on systems with real users, real constraints, and real consequences. Some of that work will be modernising legacy codebases that have served public services for years. Some will be building new capabilities from scratch. All of it requires someone who thinks in systems, not just code.

• Decompose ambiguous problems into clear system designs, making architectural decisions that balance immediate needs with long‑term maintainability
• Design, build, and ship production‑ready software across the full lifecycle. From specification through to deployment and operability
• Work across mixed environments- legacy modernisation alongside greenfield development, often within the same product
• Own technical decisions for complex system components, articulating trade‑offs in terms your product manager and your principal engineer both understand
• Define what "good" looks like for your area of the codebase - testing strategy, code quality, observability, and documentation
• Collaborate with product, design, and other engineers to understand the real problem before building anything
• A track record of building and shipping complex, real‑world software systems - not just contributing to large codebases, but owning meaningful pieces end‑to‑end
• System design and architectural reasoning- you think about how components interact, where the failure modes are, and what happens at boundaries
• Problem decomposition under ambiguity- you ask 'why' before 'how' and can translate a vague business need into a structured technical approach
• Production‑quality discipline- you care about testing, observability, error handling, and operational readiness, not just making things work locally
• Communication that reaches beyond engineers- you can explain a technical trade‑off to a product manager, write a clear specification, and build consensus on contentious decisions
• Learning agility- you pick up new stacks, tools, and domains quickly. You've worked across more than one language or framework and you're comfortable in unfamiliar territory
• Ownership and initiative- you identify problems before they're assigned to you and follow through until they're resolved in production

• Experience using AI‑assisted development tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Cursor, or similar) as part of your daily workflow
• Comfort evaluating and validating AI‑generated code to the same standard as human‑written code
• Experience in the public sector, health, housing, or local government domains
• Familiar it…