Job Title: Senior Software Engineer
Salary: £51,400- £68,800
Location: Cambridge/ Hybrid (40-60% office-based)
Contract: Permanent
Hours: 35 hours per week
Are you a hands‑on senior engineer who enjoys building reliable, impactful services – and helping others grow along the way?
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world‑leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
About the role
As a Senior Software Engineer in the Assessment APIs team, you’ll take a hands‑on role across the full software development lifecycle for a critical internal platform.
Working closely with the Team Lead and the Applied AI team, you’ll help shape the technical direction of the service, translate business needs into robust technical solutions, and ensure our APIs remain secure, scalable and highly reliable in production.
You’ll also provide technical leadership within the team, mentoring engineers and line managing 1-2 direct reports, acting as deputy for the Team Lead when needed.
Key responsibilities
- Owning the end-to-end design, development, testing and maintenance of API services.
- Contributing to the ongoing improvement and evolution of a live, production‑critical platform.
- Implementing and integrating machine learning models and emerging AI technologies.
- Ensuring solutions meet performance, scalability, security and quality standards.
- Participating in code reviews and promoting best practice and high‑quality engineering.
- Identifying and mitigating technical risks and vulnerabilities.
- Troubleshooting issues, including participation in on‑call rotations and out‑of‑hours support.
- Mentoring and technically guiding other engineers.
- Collaborating across teams, including Applied AI and API client development teams.
- Supporting knowledge sharing, planning sessions and retrospectives.
This position has been classified as a hybrid role, requiring the selected candidate to typically spend 40‑60% of their time collaborating and connecting face‑to‑face at their dedicated location. Aside from our hybrid principles, other flexible working requests will be considered from the first day of employment, including other work arrangements should you require adjustments due to a disability or long‑term health condition.
About You
You’ll bring strong hands‑on engineering experience and enjoy balancing technical delivery with mentoring and collaboration.
Essential requirements
- Significant experience in software engineering, gained through formal study, hands‑on experience, or a combination of both.
- Proven experience building, deploying and supporting API services in a production environment.
- Strong programming experience, particularly with Clojure and Python.
- Solid understanding of cloud‑based infrastructure, especially AWS (e.g. S3, RDS, ECS).
- Experience working in agile delivery environments.
- A track record of mentoring and supporting other engineers.
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical ideas clearly.
- Excellent problem‑solving skills and attention to detail.
Desirable criteria
- Experience integrating machine learning or AI‑driven components into production systems.
- Experience supporting technology transition or knowledge transfer from external partners.
- Exposure to large‑scale, business‑critical platforms and services.
Rewards and benefits
- 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
- Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
- Discretionary annual bonus
- Group personal pension scheme
- Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
- Green travel schemes
Equal Opportunity
We are a Disability Confident (DC) employer that is committed to equality and inclusion ensuring our recruitment process is accessible to all. The DC scheme’s Offer of an Interview commitment applies to applicants who opt in, and disclose a disability or a long‑term health condition, and best meet the minimum criteria for the role. In instances where interviewing all qualifying candidates is not practicable, we prioritise those who best meet the minimum criteria, as we would for applicants who do not have a disability or long‑term health condition.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route.
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