Senior Full Stack Engineer

📋 Description

• • At ZOE, we are driven by a mission to transform health through advanced science and technology, and our Engineering team is at the very core of this endeavor. We are a dynamic, distributed group of approximately 40 engineers spanning the UK and EU, united by our passion for tackling complex challenges collaboratively. Our team is deeply cross-functional, integrating expertise from front-end, back-end, mobile, machine learning, and data domains. We work in close partnership with our Product, Design, and Science teams to craft truly impactful experiences for our members.
• • We foster an environment that champions curiosity, openness, and empowerment. Continuous learning, the free exchange of ideas, and actively shaping our work processes are highly encouraged. This includes experimenting with new technologies and continuously improving team efficiency. We are proud of our team's diversity, with a 40% female and 60% male representation, and firmly believe that varied backgrounds, cultures, and lived experiences are fundamental to making us stronger, more creative, and better equipped to serve our global community.
• • We are seeking a Product-First Engineer who possesses a strong backend foundation but is eager to take ownership of the entire user journey. This role embodies a 'Full-Stack Agency' mindset. While your core expertise may lie in Kotlin or Python, your primary identity is that of a problem solver. You will be empowered to move across the technology stack, diving into our React Native codebase whenever it represents the most efficient path to delivering tangible user value.
• • Our engineering culture is built around the principle of 'Ship Fast, Learn Faster.' You will join a team that highly values technical velocity, releasing small, frequent changes (multiple times a day) and utilizing short feedback loops to maintain agility and stay on track. Your contributions will directly impact the health of millions, from architecting robust microservices on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to leveraging AI-augmented tools. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a rising senior engineer, you will find an environment that rewards initiative and prioritizes the delivery of a perfect user experience over the pursuit of perfect code.
• • You will own the outcome of your work, taking initiative to lead features from conception to completion and enhance the user experience by transcending traditional code boundaries. You will operate with a clear sense of purpose, moving across the stack as needed to ensure the right problem is solved, irrespective of who officially 'owns' a particular repository. Your focus will be on putting the user experience first, relentlessly optimizing to reduce friction and addressing the bottlenecks that users actually encounter, rather than solely focusing on code perfection. You will champion non-functional requirements, paying close attention to perceived performance, user privacy, and reliable data accuracy, as these elements collectively contribute to an exceptional user experience.
• • We advocate for the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle, fighting complexity by favoring concrete, simple implementations today (YAGNI - You Ain't Gonna Need It). You will be encouraged to aggressively delete deprecated code and resist the urge for bespoke builds when off-the-shelf solutions are readily available and sufficient. Maintaining momentum is key, and you will contribute to releasing features several times a day. By utilizing short feedback loops and feature flags, we surface integration issues early, thereby avoiding the risks associated with long-lived branches.
• • You will actively partner on defining the 'Why' behind our work, collaborating closely with Product and Science teams to break down complex problems. You will be empowered to question specifications that do not directly serve the desired outcome and participate in Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) to ensure our systems remain adaptable and easy to change. Your technical toolkit will include a cutting-edge stack featuring Kotlin with Spring Boot, Python with FastAPI and Django on the backend; React Native for the frontend; and GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, dbt, BigQuery, and Airflow for data and infrastructure. We also utilize tools like Google Pub/Sub, Grafana, and Firebase Auth, with CI/CD managed through ArgoCD and GitHub Actions.
• • As a Product-Minded Engineer, you will possess deep empathy for the user and the innate curiosity to ask 'should we build this?' before 'how?'. You will consistently prioritize user value over technical perfection. You will be a Boundary-Crosser, a backend expert in Kotlin, Python, or Java, unafraid to dive into React Native or data pipelines to successfully deliver a feature. The phrase 'not my domain' will not be part of your vocabulary. You will be Pragmatic and Simple, possessing an aversion to over-engineering and favoring simple, maintainable solutions, treating code deletion as a badge of honor. You will be an Autonomous Builder, thriving in ambiguity and moving with purpose, building the path rather than waiting for one, favoring concrete implementation over presumed requirements (YAGNI). Finally, you will be a High-Craft Collaborator, leading through RFCs and mentorship, elevating the team's technical bar while obsessively automating routine tasks to maintain focus on high-value problems. You will be Technically Grounded, with experience scaling microservices and an enthusiasm for using AI-augmented tools to accelerate delivery.