Head of Software Engineering, Urban Jungle
£75-100k
Offers share options
4+ days a week in office (Oval, London)
Insurance for the demands of a new generation
Posted today
Insurance for the demands of a new generation
21-100 employees
Posted today
£75-100k
Offers share options
4+ days a week in office (Oval, London)
21-100 employees
Company mission
To make home insurance that’s fair - to you, your wallet, and the planet.
Role
Who you are
- At least 4 years of professional experience working as a software engineer with at least 2 years of leadership and management experience
- You’re fluent in and opinionated on one or more of:
- Front-End Javascript frameworks (we work with Angular)
- Python
- You’ve got experience with (or are at least excited to learn more about!):
- Front-End/UX design and prototyping
- Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, RabbitMQ, AWS, SQL
- You’ll be confident using your technical expertise to influence key decisions about how we design, build, and grow our products and systems
- You’re comfortable working through ambiguous problems with a high degree of autonomy
- You treat everyone with integrity, respect and kindness - whether it’s your colleagues, our customers, or our partners
What the job involves
- As a Head of Software Engineering at Urban Jungle, you’ll play a leading role in our 16 strong engineering team whilst collaborating across the business to ensure we continue to build products that delight our customers, working on everything from shipping new commercial partnerships to improving our claims experience, to building a world class technology platform
- You’ll hit the ground running, embedding with one of our existing teams so you can build key relationships across the business, get up to speed with our tech stack quickly, and start shipping valuable features within your first few weeks
- We’ll start you off in areas where you have the most experience and then gradually give you exposure to the rest of our services to build out your expertise
- In this role, you’ll work closely with our Engineering Director, Ben, as well as getting lots of exposure to our senior leadership team - who’ve previously led some of the world’s fastest-growing businesses - as you play a pivotal role in achieving our company’s growth plans
- You’ll be a key member of our engineering leadership group, working with them to develop our engineering strategy and refine our team-level approach
- As part of this, you will be responsible for managing the day-to-day of a large team of engineers as well as overseeing some of our core processes and areas of our technology
- You’ll collaborate with teams across the business to build real value and shape the future of the company - think product launches, partner integrations, and platform-wide improvements
- You’ll play a key role in the delivery of our cross-functional projects; ensuring they run smoothly, and that we are consistently getting better at the way we deliver them
- You will make the case for prioritising work in the areas that you own and for making amendments to our strategy where you think appropriate, working with stakeholders across the business to ensure you can have maximum impact
- You will be responsible for managing multiple direct reports and will play an increasingly large role in mentoring newer managers as they make the transition into line management
- Of course, as a startup we’ll also expect you to roll your sleeves up and get involved wherever the company needs you
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Urban Jungle was founded in 2016 by a team from both in and outside of the insurance industry. Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth noticed that the insurance industry was moving at a really slow pace, hardly taking advantage of the available technology and often leaving customers behind, especially younger ones. Now Urban Jungle is the top rated home insurance provider in the UK.
Modern insurers have inherited, from their 80s predecessors, a highly inefficient general approach to the industry: when launching a new system, only new customers are included in it, while old customers remain in the old system. Customer Service Operatives at really big insurers are fishing in different systems to find people's records and that does not favour productivity at all. The challenge with Urban Jungle’s process is to build up the insurance experience from scratch taking advantage of the technology that has been developed in recent years, reducing costs and empowering customers.
Special attention needs to be paid to the insurance product. The responsiveness to the way people's risks are changing over time is a key aspect that insurers should always bear in mind. Adapting the insurance product to ever-changing needs is definitely the main challenge for Urban Jungle and its competitors, and the best way to do it is to keep continuous and direct contact with customers. Regularly testing the current insurance offer and showing readiness when adapting the product to a new necessity is the real turning point and what Urban Jungle is working for.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)
Apr 2024
$15.1m
SERIES A
May 2022
$22.2m
SERIES A
Total funding: $58.8m
Company benefits
- Share options that can increase alongside performance and growth
- 25 days paid annual leave, plus public holidays
- Rapid Progression. We’ll give you the opportunity to experience loads, and develop rapidly. You’ll get tons of responsibility from day one, and all the feedback, coaching and support you need to fuel your career growth
- Real Impact. You’ll work on big, interesting problems that will challenge you, and do so in a way that has a positive impact on people’s lives, the planet and our community
- A Clear Plan. We’ll give you the clarity on what we want to achieve, with the freedom and autonomy for you to decide how we get there
- The Best People. You’ll be surrounded by teammates who are exceptional at what they do, whilst being kind, honest people who champion our values
- A dedicated development budget, access to a senior mentor, and training on whatever you need to do your job well
- Well-being support. We’re committed to supporting both physical and mental well-being through access to therapy, weekly onsite yoga, and subsidised sports clubs
- Enhanced parental leave, and support for parents returning to work
- All. The. Fun. We regularly organise awesome socials and have some vibrant team communities such as book club and foodies
Company values
- Customer First. We do the right thing, even when no one is watching. We’ll always talk to our community of customers to stay on top of what that is
- Be Responsible. We don’t just say we care, we show it with our actions. We make decisions that take into account the world around us, whether that be considering the environment, supporting diversity or creating a great place to work
- Keep Getting Better. We always look for ways to innovate and improve next time. We’re open and honest about what’s working and not
- Aim For Extraordinary. Nothing daunts us. We never back away from the toughest problems, and hold ourselves to the highest standards. We’re setting a new pace in an industry that moves slowly
Company HQ
Lambeth, London, UK
Articles
Leadership
Jimmy Williams
(Co-Founder & CEO)Their background is in Consulting, where they worked with various insurers, tech providers in financial services, and price comparison sites, as a Principal at OC&C.
Greg Smyth
(Co-Founder & CTO)They were most recently VP of Research and Data Technology at Winton Capita. Previously they worked at Facebook, starting their first engineering team in London, and Google.
People progressing
Julia joined the team as a Data Analyst in 2020, and was promoted to Senior Data Analyst after 1 year. Now Julia is a Director of Analytics and BI.
Tiago joined Urban as a Software Engineer in 2019, and after several promotions, they are now a Principal Engineer.
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