Senior Backend Developer

Welcome to the future of energy
We are both an electricity retailer and a tech platform and we think there is no better way to address our greatest challenge, climate change, than with the combination of those two.
Through our proprietary tech platform, Kraken, we are changing the way people interact with their energy company - by making it approachable, low cost, 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. In many markets we are a leading employer on Glassdoor for best places to work.
Our teamWe 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 pair program, 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

• Take ownership of the challenges presented. Octopus believes that senior developers are capable of delivering on larger projects in a sustainable manner and do so while encouraging others to participate in the effort through documentation and best practices.
• 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 The US energy market is complicated, outdated and process-heavy - there's a lot of domain modeling that we need to get right.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.
• 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

• At least 5 years professional experience
• The desire to to lead and mentor less experienced developers
• General interest in technology and problem-solving; Diligent and thoughtful
• Excellent communication skills
• Python
• 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:
• Django
• Django REST Framework
• AWS
• Terraform, Packer, Consul
• React and Redux
• Professional understanding of the US energy domain

Why you'll love 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.
• Wondering what the salary for this role is? Just ask us! When on a call with one of our recruiters it's something we always cover as we genuinely want to match your experience with the correct salary. The reason why we don't advertise is because we honestly have a degree of flexibility and would never want salary to be a reason why someone doesn't apply to Octopus - what's more important to us is finding the right octofit!

If this sounds like you then we'd love to hear from you.
Studies have shown that some groups of people, like women, are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet 100% of the job requirements. Whoever you are, if you like one of our jobs, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we hire. Across Octopus, we're looking for genuinely decent people who are honest and empathetic. Our people are our strongest asset and the unique skills and perspectives people bring to the team are the driving force of our success. As an equal opportunity employer, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected attribute. Our commitment is to provide equal opportunities, an inclusive work environment, and fairness for everyone.