Staff Software Engineer / Tech Lead

Safi’s mission is to make circular economy firms more profitable through the deployment of AI Technology. We do that by developing foundational models, software and data connectors. In this role you will deploy our technology with customers and help them use it to improve their plants.

Why Safi?

Our customers are industrial recyclers of plastic and metals - manufacturers, processors, smelters. These firms are held back by limited, legacy technology. Our current customers include one of the world’s largest recycling plants and a group that processes the entire plastic waste stream of a major developed nation.

We have product-market fit and strong customer traction in an under-served market. We want to expand on that traction to manage the entire end to end lifecycle of plants in multiple sectors.

We’re backed by leading climate-focused VCs, including LowerCarbon Capital, Nosara Capital and Transition Ventures. If our mission resonates with you, we encourage you to apply, even if your experience doesn’t match every requirement.

Who we’re looking for:

We're at an early stage with a small team. We need an experienced Staff Software Engineer / Tech Lead to deeply understand these plants and help us automate and improve them.

You:

• Own technical direction. You make the call on how core systems are designed and built, not just on the code in front of you - and you can justify those calls in terms of pace, reliability, and what the business needs next.

• Raise the bar of strong engineers around you. Not via management, but via shipped work, the architecture you set, and the questions you ask in PRs and design reviews.

• Have experience working with a high degree of autonomy, quickly and with a large set of competing problems to tackle (and enjoy it!).

• Have experience taking products from 0 to 1 (and then from 1 to 100!) - and have made the architectural decisions that let a system survive that transition.

• Are excited about deploying technology at real-world industrial sites.

• Can take a problem from "I saw something that could be improved at a plant" to a shipped feature in our app deploying at the plant, end-to-end, within a sprint or two.

• Can work closely with customers - assessing (not just blindly following) what they say, observing their operations and understanding what is the critical thing to impact.

• Are interested in commercial questions (how much do we charge for this?), deployment (what's the right UI for forklift engineers wearing gloves?) and AI/ML (what can we build that is 10x better than their current ERP process?).

• Can work shoulder-to-shoulder with our ML team. You don't train models but turn their outputs into something a forklift driver and a procurement manager both want to use.

Requirements:

• You have led multiple user-facing projects end-to-end, and can scope and define projects for others to work on alongside you.

• You can own system design and architecture for a production product, and have examples of architectural decisions you made and the trade-offs behind them.

• Deep Experience with the majority of our stack and have examples of filling experience gaps quickly

  • Python

  • Django and DRF

  • React and React Native

  • PostgresQL

  • Google Cloud

• Experience monitoring reliable systems and recovering from outages

  • You know how to see an alert in production and dig in to deliver a resolution.

• At least 5 years in an environment where shipping fast is important.

  • You are comfortable delivering at pace but with strong monitoring and testing fundamentals so that software is robust and easily fixable

• Happy to travel to a customer site or our London HQ regularly (i.e. avg. once per month) (expenses covered by Safi, of course)

• If remote, timezone +/-2 hrs of London

The process:

• Screening Call (15 mins)

• Product Challenge (1 hour with our CPO)

• Working session with our Engineers - Using your own development tools (60 to 90 mins)

• Technical Challenge - System Design and Architecture (1 hour)

• Final Chat, Q+A (30 mins)

Compensation and Benefits:

• Competitive salary and share option plan

  • Salary varies based on location and level of experience. For a candidate in London, UK we expect to pay between £140,000 - £160,000, dependent on seniority

• 26 days annual leave (+ all UK bank holidays) - the bank holidays are flexible, so you can take them whenever it suits you

• HQ in Spitalfields, East London, UK

• Personal wellness & development budget of £75 per month

• Home office kit-out budget of £500

• Regular team socials and meals

• Private health insurance (UK)

• Salary sacrifice pension scheme (UK)

• Cycle to work scheme (UK)

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. If you require reasonable adjustments at any stage, please let us know.