Senior Software Engineer

At Gigaton, we’re on a mission to cut gigatonnes of carbon emissions from the world’s biggest emitting industries (like cement, steel and glass), by building autonomous AI control and optimisation systems that learn and leverage the physics of manufacturing. Our products run heavy industrial plants more efficiently, more stably, and with lower emissions in real time - laying the foundation for the next industrial revolution. We are a team of scientists, engineers, builders, and operators who love hard problems, have high standards, and want to make change happen in the physical world. We care about deep tech, but we care even more about whether it delivers cost and carbon impact in a live plant, with real people, under real constraints. With Gigaton, you’ll solve really tough problems in places few people ever get close to, and build something that actually helps the planet. Are you up for the challenge? ABOUT THE ROLE We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Platform team and help us build reliable software for a complex, real-world AI product. The Platform team works across a broad range of problems at Gigaton, from CI/CD for our monorepo and networking and data integration with on-premise plant systems, to hardening our IoT OS image and building customer-facing software around our control systems. The work is currently split across two squads: 1. Enablement, focused on helping engineers move faster. 2. Product, focused on supporting our control software. Whichever squad you join, you’ll work across technically challenging problems with plenty of scope to learn, contribute and shape how we build software. YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES • Write reliable, well-tested software in Python and Terraform. • Monitor, support and improve software running in production. • Mentor less experienced engineers and help them develop their craft. • Identify, articulate and drive architectural improvements. • Bring strong software engineering practices to code developed across the wider engineering and ML teams. • Contribute to improving the quality, maintainability and reliability of our systems. BONUS EXPERIENCE You don’t need all of these, but experience in any of the following would be useful: • Control engineering, machine learning or MLOps. • AWS IoT, Greengrass or Mender for managing device fleets. • Working across multiple cloud environments, such as AWS, GCP or Azure. • Managing CI/CD environments using GitHub Actions. • Building production artefacts using tools such as Docker. • Functional programming languages such as Haskell, F# or Elm. • Building or working with more complex AI-enabled workflows beyond simple prompting. YOU’LL EXCEL IF YOU ARE • Excited by complex technical domains and enjoy getting to grips with unfamiliar systems. • Highly collaborative and comfortable working across software, ML and other disciplines. • Familiar with practices such as testing, pairing, mobbing and iterative software development. • Pragmatic about engineering trade-offs and know when good enough now is better than perfect later. • Comfortable working with ambiguity and evolving requirements. • Able to improve existing systems, not just build new ones from scratch. • Happy to take ownership of problems and follow them through into production. 💡 You are not expected to check every box, and we’d love to hear from you even if your experience isn’t an exact match. We’re building a team that reflects the world we want to change. Our people come from different countries, cultures and experiences, and we think that’s one of our biggest strengths. We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels safe, respected and celebrated. No matter your background, if you’re excited by what we do, we want to hear from you. THE INTERVIEW PROCESS Our interview process is designed to help us understand your experience, how you think and how you work with others, while giving you plenty of opportunity to get to know Gigaton too. 1. TALENT PARTNER CONVERSATION You’ll start with a conversation with our Talent Partner. We’ll talk through your background, what you’re looking for and what interests you about Gigaton. We’ll also give you more context on the role, the team and the interview process, and answer any initial questions you have. 2. HIRING MANAGER INTERVIEW Next, you’ll meet the hiring manager for a deeper conversation about your experience and some of the technical problems you’ve worked on. We’ll explore the work you’ve owned, the decisions you’ve made, how you approach engineering trade-offs and whether the role feels like a strong match on both sides. 3A. PAIR PROGRAMMING - REMOTE SESSION You’ll work with one of our engineers on a small technical exercise using Python and Terraform. We’re not assessing memorised syntax or speed under pressure. We’re interested in how you reason, collaborate, use tests to guide your work, learn from documentation or tools, and communicate while solving an unfamiliar problem. 3B. TECHNICAL ONSITE This technical stage takes place in our London office and consists of one session. System design You’ll walk us through a real system you’ve worked on and had meaningful influence over. We’ll ask about the problem, constraints, operational characteristics, design decisions, trade-offs and how the system evolved over time. This isn’t a formal presentation. You’ll introduce the system for around 10–15 minutes, then we’ll explore it together in more depth. 4. OPERATING PRINCIPLES INTERVIEW We’ll discuss examples from your past experience that relate to how we work at Gigaton: • Concrete Honesty • Autonomous Ownership • Go Gig or Go Home • Cement It with Fun and Kindness We’re interested in specific examples of how you’ve demonstrated these behaviours in practice rather than abstract culture-fit questions. 5. CEO CONVERSATION Finally, you’ll meet Josh, our CEO. This is a chance to talk more broadly about Gigaton, our mission, where the company is heading and whether this feels like the right move for both sides. We believe hiring is a two-way process. Just as we’ll conduct reference checks before making a final offer, we encourage you to reference-check us too by speaking with team members you haven’t yet met. Once interviews are complete, we’ll move quickly to a decision, and we’re always happy to provide feedback at any stage. In return for your hard work, we’ll give you 📈 Equity in the company: When we win, you win. You’ll get share options, so you’re part of our journey from the inside. 🕰️ Flexible working We trust you to know how and when you work best and to work that out with your team. 🌴 30 days of holiday (plus bank holidays). Rest is productive. Take the time you need to recharge 🪙 A generous pension scheme. We’re planning for the future in more ways than one. Our Operating Principles ↗️ Go Gig or Go Home: High Bar, All In. What we do matters to humanity, to our customers and to each other. We hold ourselves to an extraordinarily high bar and bring the urgency this mission requires. 🏭 Concrete Honesty: Be honest. As concrete forms the foundation of our world, genuine honesty and transparency are the bedrock of our culture. 🦾 Autonomous Ownership: High agency, high ownership. We build systems that take control and make things better. We do the same: see it, own it, drive it. 😄 Cement it with Kindness & Fun: Have fun, be kind. We're here to extend Earth's life, but ours is still limited. We want to enjoy the ride. To see these in full, go to Gigaton’s Operating Principles https://gigaton-technologies.notion.site/gigaton-s-operating-principles Notion page. Compensation: £60K - £105K