Senior Engineer I (Backend)

TrustedHousesitters is a fast growing, direct-to-consumer marketplace that is redefining pet care and travel. Our platform connects a thriving global community of pet lovers through a unique trust-based membership model. We’re on a mission to create a world where pet owners can travel with peace of mind , knowing their pets are in safe hands, while sitters enjoy unique homestays around the world.
Our vision is simple: to become the world’s most loved travel solution for pet people - and we’re making it a reality. With almost 250,000 members worldwide with the ambition of scaling to 1 Million, 97% say we have improved their lives, and our growth is high as word-of-mouth fuels a fast-growing, passionate community.
TrustedHousesitters was named one of Escape the City's top organisations to work for in 2023 and we were proud to be part of the 2024 cohort of Technation’s Future Fifty, the UK’s leading pre-IPO programme. In October 2024 we secured B Corp certification, reflecting our commitment to our people, the planet and pets across the world. 
At TrustedHousesitters, we embrace a collaborative, high-impact work environment where innovation, individual accountability, and ownership drive everything we do. We believe in empowering our people to see the real impact of their work. Every team member plays a role in crafting quality experiences for our members, and we continuously push ourselves to improve, iterate, and innovate always with the goal of strengthening our global community of pet lovers.
Now is an exciting time to join TrustedHousesitters where innovation, advocacy and community-driven growth are at the heart of our success. If you're looking to make a real impact in a mission-led, fast-scaling tech business, this is the right place for you.
About the Role
We are seeking a motivated Senior Backend Engineer to join our Health Alliance team, which plays a critical role in the monetisation strategy and driving our mission to scale TrustedHousesitters from 250K to 1 million members.
This role focuses on building fast and scalable capabilities using our Python/Django back-end with SQL DB, the ideal candidate will be comfortable with APIs and passionate about performance and best practices.
As part of the Health Alliance, you’ll thrive in a collaborative, experimentation-driven environment where iteration, autonomy, and impact are core values. Your work will directly impact our members (pet owners and sitters) by delivering exceptional capabilities that enhance the value they’re getting from the platform.

Responsibilities

• Driving the design, development and innovation of new and existing capabilities that deliver value to our members enhancing their experience of our platform and increasing lifetime value. 
• Improving our platform’s architecture and developer experience by contributing to our evolving Python/Django codebase, enabling faster delivery and scalable code.
• Writing clean, well-tested code and performing high-quality, constructive code reviews.
• Influencing technical discussions and architecture decisions to shape the platform’s future.
• Troubleshooting complex issues in production and ensuring ongoing application performance and reliability.
• Mentoring others and raising the standard of engineering practices within the team.
• Collaborate with Product and Design to shape initiatives that impact key KPIs while aligning technical tradeoffs with business priorities.

Requirements

• Proven experience (4+ years) in back-end development, including production-grade Python/Django or equivalent frameworks.
• Strong understanding of scalable back-end architecture, performance optimisation, and best coding practices.
• Experience designing, building, and evolving APIs and integrating with third-party platforms.
• Ability to lead technical discovery, architecture planning, and implementation of complex product features.
• Great communication skills and confidence in collaborating cross-functionally with other Engineers, Product Managers, Designers, QA, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable driving initiatives in ambiguous problem spaces, aligning business and technical perspectives.
• Experience within the payment domain and with integrating payment processors (e.g. Stripe).
• Experience mentoring engineers through pairing, code reviews, and knowledge-sharing.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing strategies, and observability tools (e.g., GitHub Actions, Sentry, Datadog).
• A mindset geared toward experimentation, measurement, and continuous improvement, especially within product teams.

Nice To Haves

• Previous experience working in a start-up/scale-up environment.
• Familiar with Agile methodologies and working with Scrum/Kanban.
• Experience integrating AI/ML-powered tools or APIs (e.g., GPT, image recognition, personalisation engines) to enhance user experience or automate tasks.
• Experience leveraging AI to enhance your own productivity.
• Familiarity with A/B testing frameworks or data-informed experimentation.

Benefits
In addition to a competitive salary and bonus, we offer a range of benefits, including:
Fully remote workGenerous equity optionsDiscretionary 10% annual bonus scheme25 days holiday annually plus bank holidays and Christmas to New Year closurePension scheme: 5% from you as an employee and 3% from TrustedHousesittersPremium TrustedHousesitters pet owner and sitter membership. This includes benefits like airport lounge passes, sit cancellation insurance, and home and contents insurance for sits for youX5 premium memberships for your friends and family each yearOur team have an unlimited housesitting allowance, can work remotely from their sits, and are eligible to £500 per year towards travel costs£200 annually towards home office equipmentAccess to Spaces (co-working) Locations across the globeMonthly working from home stipendMacbook Find a rescue pet to join your family and we’ll cover the adoption fees, as well as paternity to help any pet settle into their new home.We host a quarterly all-expenses paid meet-up and will fund team events (remote or in person) throughout the yearWe can cover costs of personal development resources, and have a regular time set aside for personal developmentBupa Health Insurance and Dental Insurance planSimplyHealth Healthcare Cash planTrusted Giving scheme - employee volunteering via Onhand and employee giving via TyveWeekly virtual yoga sessionsBrighton BikeshareRecruitment Referral Bonus
If you're ready to join us on our mission to become the most loved pet travel solution, we'd love to hear from you!
In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example- she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc).
At the heart of our team are a mix of diverse backgrounds. Here at TrustedHousesitters, we’re committed to the equal opportunities policy throughout the interview process and selection. Offers of employment into TrustedHousesitters are based solely on individual merit, qualifications, and the person's professional suitability.
Gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origins, religion or beliefs, age, mental or physical disability, medical condition, pregnancy or maternity status, or any other protected characteristics do not enter into our decision-making process.