Cavendish Professionals
Senior Software Engineer
Requirements
Requires 3–8 years of recent hands-on coding experience, strong problem-solving ability, and comfort debugging complex, unfamiliar systems; experience in a demanding, high-growth startup is sought. Strong communication skills and a strong academic background, ideally a computer science degree, are preferred, with exceptional technical achievements accepted as alternative evidence.
Job Description
Forward Deployed Engineer – London
Location: London, 4 days per week onsite
Travel: Up to 25% to customer sites
Type: Full-time
Stack: JavaScript, TypeScript, browser internals, CI/CD
About the role
A fast-growing developer-tools company is hiring one of its first Forward Deployed Engineers. Its product automatically generates and maintains frontend browser tests, so engineers no longer have to write and maintain them by hand. After several years building the core technology, the company is now scaling quickly.
You'll work closely with the core engineering team and report directly to the CTO. The role is highly technical and heavily customer-facing, with roughly 80–90% of your time spent with customers. It is not a Solutions Architect or pre-sales position. You'll write production code and make changes to the core product.
You'll own customers end-to-end, from technical discovery and pilot through integration, deployment and expansion. Your counterparts will be VPs of Engineering, Staff+ engineers and technical leaders at high-growth technology companies.
What you'll do
- Understand complex customer architectures and design integrations
- Debug unfamiliar codebases, browser internals, CI/CD integrations and web APIs
- Write and ship production code to unblock customer deployments
- Build new product functionality where customer requirements expose gaps
- Lead technical pilots and own customer relationships
- Feed customer learnings directly into the product roadmap
- Help build the FDE playbook, tooling and processes from scratch
What we're looking for
- 3–8 years' experience with strong, recent hands-on coding
- A background in a demanding, high-growth startup environment, such as founding engineer, ex-founder, strong startup engineer or highly technical product engineer
- Excellent algorithmic and logical problem-solving skills
- Comfort navigating and debugging complex, unfamiliar systems, rather than relying on knowledge of one particular stack
- Communication skills to work directly with senior engineering leaders
- A strong academic background, ideally a CS degree from a top university. Without one, evidence of exceptional technical ability, such as competitive programming, significant open-source work or coding from an early age.
Strong signals
- Founding engineer or founder experience
- Building a product from 0 to scale
- Experience at an elite technical company
- Hackathon or competitive programming success
- Another clear technical "spike"
This role may not suit you if
- You're a Solutions Architect or consultant who hasn't coded recently
- You want a pure individual-contributor engineering role with minimal customer contact
- You're looking for predictable hours with no travel
What's on offer
- Founding-level scope in a new function
- Direct access to the CTO and core engineering team
- Ownership of major customer relationships
- Significant equity
- Visa sponsorship and transfers available
Feel free to message me directly to find out more!
Education
Skills
About Cavendish Professionals
Cavendish Professionals is a specialist recruitment partner operating across Construction & Engineering and Technology. Our dedicated divisional teams combine deep market knowledge with a proactive, consultative approach, enabling us to deliver high-quality talent solutions aligned to our clients’ strategic goals. Headquartered in the UK, we support projects and organisations across the UK and Europe, partnering with businesses ranging from established industry leaders to high-growth enterprises. We are known for our transparent communication, diligent delivery and long-term relationship focus. By understanding both the technical requirements and the cultural dynamics of every brief, we consistently connect organisations with professionals who drive performance and growth. Reach out today at +44 (0)203 008 5212, and let's explore new opportunities together at Cavendish Professionals.