Backend Developer

Welcome to the future of energyWe’re a leading energy technology company providing a better experience for our customers through transparency, honesty and simplicity. Better for the planet, through real long-term investment in renewable generation and a low CO2 future and better for our customer’s wallets with fair and affordable plans. Through our proprietary platform and custom-built stack, cloud-based billing, and sophisticated use of data science, we’re revolutionizing what’s possible in energy. We’re transforming the way people interact with their energy company, by making it approachable, easy-to-understand, and most importantly, 100% renewable. We’ve distinguished ourselves by being named 2020’s Energy Provider of the Year, which highlights our commitment to exceptional customer service. We’ve just hopped across the pond in the US and are making big strides in Texas...but that’s only the beginning. Come join our rapidly growing team as we continue to break barriers in energy. Our teamWe are the latest acquisition of Octopus Energy, so our tech team needs to grow fast!We follow a Kanban-like approach, using Google docs, BaseCamp, and Asana to specify and manage work; Github, CircleCI and Terraform Enterprise as part of an immutable-infrastructure, continuous delivery pipeline; and Loggly, Sentry and Cloudwatch to measure performance and monitor production.Engineering standards are high. We thoroughly review and test code before it deploys, and maintain fast, high-value test suites. We have weekly tech talks, monthly blitz-days (eg sharpening our internal tools, upgrading dependencies) and can often be found at tech meet-ups and conferences.Our coding conventions are open-source and we maintain a tech blog.Octopus is a great place to learn, work with some talented engineers and level-up your skills.Our technologyOn the server-side, we mainly use Python. Most of our websites are powered by Django and the Django-REST-framework. We also use Pandas, Numpy and Jupyter for analysis and forecasting, plus Celery, RabbitMQ, SQS and Airflow for background processing.We use AWS heavily, employing most of the "Hashistack" (eg Packer, Consul, Terraform) as part of a continuous deployment pipeline. See, for example, Django, ELB health checks and continuous delivery.Client-side, we use React, Redux and SASS; our mobile apps are built using React Native.

What you'll do

• We have lots of difficult design challenges to solve. The US energy market is complicated, outdated and process-heavy - there's a lot of domain modelling that we need to get right. Strong attention to detail is essential.
• We have difficult technical problems to solve. With the advent of smart meters, we'll soon be processing millions of meter readings a day. We need the right technology in place to handle this smoothly as well as feeding data into a machine learning pipeline that models and predicts consumption.
• Often, we can only give you the question and not the answer, because if we knew the answer, we wouldn’t be hiring - are you someone who not only finds answers but creates value by coming back and asking better questions?
• There's a great opportunity for disruption in the US energy market. The big suppliers still dominate, but are not popular. The energy landscape is changing as we move to more dis-aggregated forms of generation, with less predictability, more dynamism and smarter technology. Octopus Energy were the first UK supplier to introduce a "tracker" tariff whose prices track the daily wholesale prices: http://www.cleanenergynews.co.uk/news/efficiency/octopus-offers-transparency-with-wholesale-price-tariff
• You'll be working for a company that’s fighting climate change. Our parent company is the largest investor in solar generation in the UK, and are funding wind and anaerobic digestion. As a supplier, we're helping people to use greener technology and renewable energy, all helping move the UK towards a lower carbon future.

What you'll have

• General interest in technology and problem-solving; Diligent and thoughtful.
• Good communication skills
• Python
• Django
• Django REST Framework
• Domain modelling
• HTTP and REST APIs
• Writing robust and fault-tolerant software
• Celery and async processing
• Postgres
• Legally able to work within the USA
Plus experience in the following would be a bonus:
• AWS
• Terraform, Packer, Consul
• React and Redux
• Professional understanding of the US energy domain

What you'll love about us

• Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options including FSAs
• Unlimited paid time off — we know working hard means also being able to recharge as needed, we trust our employees to get the work done and take the time they need..
• 401(k) plan with employer match:
• Parental leave. Biological, adoptive and foster parents are all eligible.
• Pre-tax commuter benefits .
• Flexible working environment: you need to shift around your schedule? You do you, we genuinely believe in work/life balance.
• Equity Options: every Octopus employee owns part of the business. We’re a team, working together towards huge goals. Every person is crucial to our success, you should be rewarded as such.
• Modern office or co-working spaces depending on location.

We would prefer someone who can work post-pandemic in our Houston office. For those who want to work within the USA, we cannot sponsor H1 applications. Above all, we’re looking for someone who thrives on providing alternative opinions, challenging those around them and being challenged.If this all sounds like you then we'd love to hear from you. At Octopus, we're looking for genuinely decent people who are honest and empathetic. Our commitment is to provide equal opportunities, a diverse and inclusive work environment, and fairness for everyone. You are welcome to apply no matter your race, gender identity, sexuality, age, family or civil status, disability, religion, or ethnicity.