Senior Backend Engineer , Cuvva
£95-100k
+ Share Options
1-4 days a week in office (Farringdon, London)
Short-term car insurance provider
Job no longer available
Short-term car insurance provider
101-200 employees
Job no longer available
£95-100k
+ Share Options
1-4 days a week in office (Farringdon, London)
101-200 employees
Company mission
To give everyone affordable access to a car with temporary care insurance.
Role
Who you are
- A strong background in Golang and AWS infrastructure, with experience working in production environments
- Familiarity with Terraform, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB, Docker, Kubernetes and Redis with bonus points for NodeJS. A track record of using automation to reduce toil, increase delivery speed and cut down operational costs. Familiarity with continuous integration tools like ArgoCD
- Experience with system reliability and performance optimisation, and know what it takes to scale backend systems responsibly
- A strategic mindset, you think in terms of platforms, not just products, and value long-term thinking over quick wins
- An understanding that great engineering also means being a great teammate – clear communication, respect for others’ time, and sharing what you know
- An eye for continuous improvement, both in our systems and our processes. You’re proactive, curious, and not afraid to challenge the status quo
What the job involves
- Our backend is made up of many standalone services with a JSON-based RPC interface
- We aim to create a client-agnostic API design suitable for a variety of clients (mobile apps, website, internal tooling, 3rd parties)
- Because we’re a regulated financial company, we have interesting and rigorous requirements to meet with regards to data security and auditability
- The majority of our systems are written in Go
- A few older ones are NodeJS, backed by either PostgreSQL or MongoDB and are hosted in a container environment
- We heavily lean on AWS infrastructure, and occasionally build integrations with third-party systems in the insurance industry
- As a Senior Backend Engineer, working within the Platform team, you’ll build and improve the foundational systems and infrastructure that power our insurance product
- You’ll architect and deliver services that are robust, secure and scalable, all while strategically partnering with team mates and stakeholders across Cuvva to understand challenges and create long term solutions
- You won’t just write good code, you’ll help shape how we work as a team
- Whether that’s supporting technical decisions, improving delivery processes or by identifying opportunities to automate and simplify
- You’ll operate methodically and collaboratively to share the future of our Platform team at Cuvva
- This role blends technical depth with a product mindset
- You’ll be as comfortable discussing performance trade-offs or service architectures as you are jumping into a feature rollout or pairing with teammates across a variety of initiatives such as building a new service in our backend platform, creating a new version of an existing API to deliver a new feature, or creating a CLI tool to automate something
- Write clean, concise, maintainable, scalable and well-tested code, being able to self review, break down, and make improvements to your own work whilst taking part in the entire product development process from problem-discovery to solution design, to implementation and rollout
- Design, build and maintain backend services, primarily in Golang, and using AWS infrastructure and tools like Terraform, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL
- Improve the scalability, reliability and observability of our systems, reducing downtime and optimising performance
- Use metrics and telemetry to make informed decisions about where and how to invest engineering effort
- Support infrastructure changes, improve deployment pipelines, and champion automation across the business
- Identify and mitigate technical risks, and get ahead of performance or scaling bottlenecks before they become blockers
- Contribute to incident response processes and technical write-ups that help us learn and improve as a team
- Take part in code reviews and technical discussions with empathy and curiosity, offering and receiving feedback with care
- Help foster a collaborative team culture, working closely with fellow Engineers, Product Managers, and other stakeholders across the business
- Take part in ceremonies, including standups, retros and planning, and keep our work visible (we use Shortcut)
- Stay curious and technical by pairing with peers regularly, learning from others to help raise the bar through knowledge sharing
Application process
- Initial chat with Engineering Manager (60m)
- Take-home task sent to you (up to 4hr)
- Technical interview & live challenge with Squad peers (90m)
- CTO chat (30m)
- Founder & CEO Chat (20m)
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Car insurance hasn't traditionally worked around how people actually use their cars. Most policies lock drivers into annual contracts, even if they only need cover for a few hours of days. So Cuvva has set out to fill that gap with its app that lets drivers buy fully comprehensive isnurance by trhe hour, day or week. More than a million drivers have used it, and it's becoming especially popular among younger drivers who value flexibility over paperwork.
What began as a clever workaround has turned into a profitable business, as the company is backed by investors including RTP Global and Breega, allowing its to expand its product range and challenge bigger insurers. More recently, it reached profitability and then tripled adjusted profits to £12.8M in 2024, with turnover climbing to £27.4M. A huge part of that growth has come from building its own AI-powered systems in-house, which now handle the majority of customer queries and keep operating costs low.
Now Cuvva is pushing further into the mainstream through a partnership with Toyota Insurance Services Europe, bringing its short-term cover directly ot Toyota and Lexus drivers. It's a clear sign that flexible, app-based insurance is no longer just a niche alternative but something major car brands see value in and if Cuvva can keep pairing its tech-led efficiency with partnerships like this, then its on alcear path to becoming not just the UK's leading short-term insurer, but a much broader player in digital motor insurance.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-12% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Nov 2019
$19.9m
SERIES A
Jan 2017
$2m
SEED
Total funding: $23.3m
Company HQ
Westminster, London, UK
Leadership
Freddy Macnamara
(Founder & CEO)Freddy previously founded a renewable energy consultancy in Scotland.
Share this job