Senior Software Engineer - Full Stack - Cape Town at Collinson

Purpose of the job

• As a Senior Software Engineer, you’ll be a key figure in one of our cross-functional teams, designing and building cloud-native, greenfield products from the ground up. You’ll take ownership of features and new capabilities, working closely with a Product Manager, Engineering Manager, and your teammates to deliver high-quality software that is reliable, scalable, and secure.
• You’ll be hands-on every day; refining stories, writing code, reviewing pull requests, and solving interesting technical problems. You’ll bring strong engineering practices to the team and help shape the way we build software. While you’re not expected to manage people, your technical depth and experience mean you’ll naturally become a point of reference for others on the team.We have a modern TypeScript stack, cloud-native environment, containerised deployments, and a strong focus on automation, observability, and AI-enhanced development.
• If you enjoy solving complex problems, delivering high-impact features, and being part of a high-trust, high-autonomy engineering culture, we'd love to have you onboard.

Key responsibilities

• Write clean, efficient, and testable code (for both frontend and backend services), owning complex features and services from design to deployment.
• Work closely with your squad (PMs, engineers, QAs) to refine requirements, scope technical solutions, and deliver great software.
• Champion automated testing and CI/CD. You’ll write unit, integration, and contract tests, and help make our systems robust and reliable.
• Build, deploy, and monitor services in AWS using tools like Terraform, Kubernetes, and GitHub Actions.
• Take responsibility for the health, performance, and maintainability of the code you ship.
• Help evolve our engineering standards and practices by sharing knowledge, reviewing code, and learning from incidents.
• Champion observability. You’ll be using DataDog to monitor services and debug production issues.
• Look for opportunities to improve development workflows using AI-powered tooling and automation. 
• Be a mentor and teacher to less experienced engineers.
• Develop in an Agile environment using tools like Git, Jira, and Confluence, with a mindset of collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Preferred: #Computer Science or Information Technology degree, Diploma or similar

NON-NEGOTIABLE:

• 5+ years of experience in software development with a strong focus on TypeScript (Node.js & React) and excellent knowledge of JavaScript fundamentals.
• Experience building and running production systems on a cloud platform (i.e. AWS and Azure).
• Comfortable developing software within an event-driven architecture.
• Experience with technical design and solution architecture.
• Deep knowledge of writing automated tests and the principles of TDD.
• Comfortable building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (we use GitHub Actions) for code deployment primarily using Terraform.
• Able to take a problem and run with it, bringing a pragmatic, product-focused approach to software delivery.

Personal Attributes:

• Show initiative: self-driven, independent problem-solver who take ownership end-to-end
• Innately curious: constantly questioning, learning, and seeking deeper understanding
• Innovative: think outside the box, be creative and implement ideas that enhance our systems - innovation is valued highly at Collinson
• Communicative collaborator: share openly, work across teams, and integrate feedback
• Strong analytical and investigative problem-solving skills
• Hungry and eager to make a difference at a technical and operational level
• The ability to get things done – we don’t like micro-management, but we expect you to do the right thing
• An attitude of being proud of your code and taking ownership

Interview Process:

• We want our process to be fair and transparent, so it’s only right that we tell you what the various interview stages are:
• Stage 1 – We'll do a screener call with our recruitment team, where you can learn a bit more about Collinson, our values and we can confirm what you’re looking for in a new role.
• Stage 2 – We'll do a short call with one of our Engineering Managers for around 30 minutes, who will tell you more about the team, our projects and ask questions about your career history and suitability for the role.
• Stage 3 – You will do a technical test (at home), and we’ll review your solution and approach to it.
• Stage 4 – This is final and main stage, where we’ll meet you for 1h, and you’ll get to spend time with different members of the engineering team including Engineering Manager and the Principal Engineer. We’ll also go through your technical test and ask questions on some of your design decisions, architectural and technical implementation.
• Stage 5 - 30 minute discussion with our Head of Architecture & Engineering