Senior Software Engineer - Online (Stock Domain)

As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you'll be joining a well‑loved historic brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues! With ethical values that run right through the company's core and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it's an exciting time as we're redefining ourselves into a digital‑first and engineering‑led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator.

About the Role

The M&S Stock Domain team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our dynamic team. You will provide technical expertise, ship thoughtful solutions, and operate with excellence. Creative, curious and fearless, you will lead the modernisation of our order management software, to provide a seamless customer experience and enable the M&S online growth ambitions through a scalable, reliable, secure and cost-effective system.

The Stock team is on a multiyear journey to build the platforms and services that will manage how we track and move stock across our business – from suppliers to distribution centres to stores and digital channels. We sit at a critical junction in the retail ecosystem, and our ambition is to provide accurate, realtime stock visibility and availability so customers can get the products they want, when and where they want them. Our team is steadily evolving towards a future where reliable stock data and event streams power everything from forecasting and replenishment to digital experiences, all built on a robust, scalable stock platform.

In this role, you will play a key part in driving our ambition to create a best‑in‑class software engineering team, environment and culture. Join our community of engineers to help build a modern digital ecosystem, work with cutting‑edge technologies, and do the best work of your career.

What you’ll do

• Build and evolve reliable data services – design and develop scalable, high‑performance pipelines and APIs in Java and Micronaut, integrating with event‑streaming platforms such as Kafka. Your work will ensure accurate, timely information reaches downstream systems and business users.

• Own features end‑to‑end – take responsibility for everything from design through development, testing, deployment and production monitoring. You will balance delivery speed with sustainability, ensuring the platform remains maintainable over time.

• Shape the technical direction of our Stock Platform – help design and evolve the services, APIs and event flows that power how we track and move stock across suppliers, distribution centres, stores and digital channels. You’ll craft solutions that balance data quality, integration reliability and operational resilience, using our modern toolchain (GitHub, CI/CD, observability and cloud infrastructure) to build a scalable stock platform that other teams can depend on.

• Champion engineering excellence – write clean, maintainable, well‑tested code and help establish best practices across multiple teams. You will encourage a continuous improvement culture through code reviews, pair programming, and high‑quality documentation.

• Drive operational excellence and observability – share responsibility for the reliability of our data integrations. Use observability tools such as Dynatrace to design for monitoring and alerting and participate in our support rota to ensure supply‑chain and pricing data remains accurate and available.

• Collaborate widely – work closely with Product Managers, cross functional engineering teams and other Fulfilment teams to solve real business problems in thoughtful and innovative ways. Cross‑functional decision‑making and breaking down information silos are essential to shortening time to value.

• Mentor and support colleagues – provide coaching and feedback to more junior engineers. Help grow our community of practice by sharing knowledge and fostering an inclusive environment.

Who you are

• Experienced in data‑intensive distributed systems – 5+ years building and scaling services that handle large datasets, ideally serving millions of records or transactions. You understand both batch and event‑driven processing and can design systems that remain resilient at scale.

• Skilled in JVM languages – proficient in one or more JVM‑based languages such as Java and Kotlin, ideally working with Micronaut, and comfortable writing clean, maintainable code.

• DevOps and CI/CD practitioner – experienced in designing and running CI/CD pipelines (for example, GitHub Actions) and driving improvements in developer productivity and release automation. Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) helps automate repeatable infrastructure changes.

• Cloud and data platform savvy – comfortable working in cloud environments (preferably Azure) and familiar with modern data processing and integration tools. Experience with Kafka for event streaming, SFTP for batch data ingestion, relational and NoSQL databases( MongoDB), and SaaS integrations for product lifecycle and pricing is highly valued. Exposure to containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes, and infrastructure automation with Terraform, is a plus.

• Data modelling and integration expert – understand domain‑driven design, data contracts and schema evolution. You care about data quality and integrity and know how to integrate with third‑party systems without excessive customisation.

• Balance strategic thinking with pragmatic delivery – you can weigh long‑term architectural goals against immediate business needs, are sensitive to commercial impacts, and thrive in high‑autonomy teams.

• Security and quality minded – experience using modern security and static‑analysis tools such as Snyk and Semgrep to identify vulnerabilities and enforce coding standards. A commitment to secure coding practices and compliance is essential.

• Curious about AI‑assisted development – open to leveraging emerging tools like GitHub Copilot to enhance productivity and accelerate learning while maintaining code quality.

What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – becoming a part and playing your part. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting and always evolving business built on core values.
Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special:

• 20% colleague discount on most things from furniture, fashion and food.

• A first‑class welcome to M&S with a tailored induction and a wide range of training schemes to help with your learning and development.

• Attractive annual bonus, based on company performance and personal objectives.

• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days.

• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices website – including GymSave and the option to become an M&S Shareholder.

• Charity Volunteer Day – a paid day away from work to support your chosen charity.

• A very generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.

• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support – including our 24/7 Virtual GP and other wellbeing schemes.

Everyone’s Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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