Backend Developer - Utilities

Help us use technology to make a big green dent in the universe!

Kraken powers some of the most innovative global developments in energy.

We’re a technology company focused on creating a smart, sustainable energy system. From optimising renewable generation, creating a more intelligent grid and enabling utilities to provide excellent customer experiences, our operating system for energy is transforming the industry around the world in a way that benefits everyone.

It’s a really exciting time in energy. Help us make a real impact on shaping a better, more sustainable future.

Kraken Customer

What we do: build the most AI-driven, innovative, forward-thinking platform for energy management. From optimizing resources to delivering cost-effective, exceptional customer experiences through advanced Customer Information Systems (CIS), billing, meter data management, CRM, and AI-driven communications, Kraken is powering the next wave of innovation in the energy industry.

Why we do it: future energy will not look like energy as we know it today. We need to not just think about our future, but build for it. Now.

Our team

All technology is written and maintained by a multi-discipline engineering team of around 800 people globally. Our engineers work in ‘super teams’ which are focused on key areas of our platform as well as other innovative products. This also includes server-side, client-side and mobile engineers working closely with UX experts, copywriters and designers. Teams are empowered to choose a way of working that works for them, often opting for a Kanban-like approach. Notion and Asana are then used to specify and manage work; Github, CircleCI and Terraform Enterprise as part of an immutable-infrastructure, continuous delivery pipeline; and Datadog, Sentry and Cloudwatch to measure performance and monitor production.

Kraken Utilities team

We’re now charging Kraken to power utilities beyond energy (think water, broadband,..) and have created a new product Kraken Utilities. We have built this team from scratch over the last 2 years and now have 100 great people focussed on this product. We're now looking to continue scaling this team and bring on talented software engineers to focus on helping us build and scale our telco product for new clients. You will work on complex challenges in a fast paced and highly autonomous work environment, and be a key part of helping cement the long term culture of the team. Together with the rest of the team, you will bring the same revolutionary customer experience, operational excellence and speed of innovation that Kraken is powering across energy retailers to other sectors. Some of our coding conventions are open-source. Kraken is a great place to learn, work with some talented engineers and level-up your skills.

Our technology

On the server-side, we mainly use Python. Most of our websites are powered by Django, Django-REST-framework and GraphQL (Graphene). We use AWS heavily as part of a continuous deployment pipeline. See, for example, Django, ELB health checks and continuous delivery. Client-side, we use React, htmx and SASS; our mobile apps are built using native code or React Native.

What you'll do

• We have lots of difficult design challenges to solve. The UK utilities market is complicated, outdated and process-heavy - there's an awful lot of domain modelling that we need to get right. Strong attention to detail is essential.
• Help build and scale the Kraken utilities team by embedding an engineering, problem solving, and customer-first culture.
• Architect & develop new components of the Kraken platform to serve other utilities.
• We have challenging technical problems to solve; like processing tens of millions of meter readings a day. We need the right technology in place to handle this smoothly as well as feeding data into a machine learning pipeline that models and predicts consumption. Or thinking about how we adapt Kraken to improve other utilities like water and broadband.
• There's a great opportunity for disruption in the UK water and broadband markets. The landscape is changing as we move to more dis-aggregated forms of generation, with less predictability, more dynamism and smarter technology.
• You'll be working for a company that’s fighting climate change. Our generation arm is the largest investor in solar generation in the UK, and is funding wind and anaerobic digestion. As a supplier, we're helping people to use greener technology and renewable energy, all helping move the UK towards a lower carbon future.

What you'll need

• We're looking for someone with a general interest in technology and problem-solving; someone diligent and thoughtful. It would be helpful to have experience/expertise in the following (in rough priority order):
• Python
• Django (or equiv. web framework)
• Domain modelling
• HTTP and REST APIs
• Writing robust and fault-tolerant software
• Celery and async processing
• Postgres Plus experience in the following would be a bonus:- AWS
• Terraform, Packer, Consul
• React and Redux

Why else you'll love it here

• Wondering what the salary for this role is? Just ask us! On a call with one of our recruiters it's something we always cover as we genuinely want to match your experience with the correct salary. The reason why we don't advertise is because we honestly have a degree of flexibility and would never want salary to be a reason why someone doesn't apply to Octopus - what's more important to us is finding the right octofit!
• Octopus Energy is a unique culture. An organisation where people learn, decide, and build quicker. Where people work with autonomy, alongside a wide range of amazing co-owners, on projects that break new ground. We want your hard work to be rewarded with perks you actually care about! We won best company to work for in 2022, on Glassdoor we we're voted 50 best places to work in 2022 and our Group CEO, Greg has recordeda podcast about our culture and how we empower our people
• Visit our perks hub - Octopus Employee Benefits