Back End Developer

Junior Backend Engineer (Applications / Infrastructure / Platform)

Want to use AI to make roads around the world safer and greener? We’re looking for an energetic Backend Engineer who enjoys tackling tough and varied problems, and is excited to ship production code that powers our smart sensors.

Salary: £40k - £55K

Reporting to: François-Xavier Decroix, Engineering Manager

Location: primarily based in our London Office, with flexible and hybrid working (ideally 2 days per week in the office).

About us

At VivaCity, we make cities smarter, safer, and more sustainable using the latest in AI and IoT technologies. We have over 6,000 AI sensors around the world, gathering real-time anonymous data on transport modes, traffic flow, and travel patterns. This is used to gather actionable insights to support strategic decisions to improve the global transport network. All our solutions are community-centric, using 'privacy by design' principles. We pride ourselves on a collaborative, open culture that fosters innovation, learning and encourages everyone to do their best work, whilst building a sense of community and collaboration. Read more about what it's like to work at VivaCity.

About the role

You’ll join a 6-person team with a broad remit spanning cloud applications, infrastructure, data pipelines and AI algorithms. Your work will be crucial to producing and managing trillions of data points per year, which flow from our smart traffic sensors to government clients. You will be a key part of our mission to make roads around the world safer and greener.

As a junior backend engineer you will work on varied projects, learning quickly on the job to make an impact for customers. You will develop new microservices, assist with infrastructure migrations, and collaborate with AI engineers to keep our deployed models working reliably. You will use pair programming and regular touch points to learn from senior engineers, but you will have the autonomy to drive your own impact in our stack.

About you

You bring energy, curiosity, and a bias for action, and you love collaborating to achieve impact for customers. You’ve written Go commercially or in substantial projects, and are comfortable with Git and the Linux command line. You communicate clearly, enjoy learning unfamiliar tech, and aren’t afraid to ask for help or be resourceful to make sure you’re delivering on-time and on-scope.

Requirements for the role

• Go: commercial or significant project experience required
• Version control (Git) and command line: basic ability and knowledge of fundamentals required
• Cloud software engineering (eg GCP/AWS): basic ability and knowledge of fundamentals required
• Docker & kubernetes: basic ability and knowledge of fundamentals required
• SQL or other structured query language: basic ability and knowledge of fundamentals required
• Problem‑solving mindset and willingness to tackle unfamiliar domains.
• Clear written and verbal communication, with a collaborative and open approach.
• Strong sense of personal accountability and attention to detail.

Your time will be spent roughly as follows:

• 60% - Proactive technical work (e.g. product development, reliability enhancements, DevX enhancements)
• 30% - Reactive technical work (e.g. incident response, support requests, code review)
• 10% - Planning and administration

This is a unique opportunity to work with exciting technologies for a good cause, whilst building your experience across a wide variety of skillsets.

The following would further strengthen an application

• Terraform or other Infrastructure‑as‑Code tooling.
• Exposure to Kafka, event‑driven architectures, or message queues.
• Familiarity with HashiCorp Vault or other secrets management tooling.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience in a start-up or scale-up environment.
• Passion for sustainability, transport or smart cities.

You don't need to have done all of these things before, but to excel in this role, you will need to be keen to learn and comfortable working in a dynamic, fast-paced environment. If you're close to what we're looking for, please consider applying. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way.

Hiring process

• 30 minute introductory interview.
• 1 hour pair programming interview where you will work together with a VivaCity engineer
• 1.5 hours final round interview, split into a 45 minute technical experience interview then 45 minute soft skills interview

We know that diverse ideas and perspectives drive innovation and make us better. We are creating an environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best work. We're an equal opportunities employer and all applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age, or social background. If you need any reasonable accommodations to help you perform at your best during the application process, please let us know.

What we offer:

• 25 days of holiday
• Flexible working hours and work from home
• Up to 30 days per year work from abroad
• Up to 3 flexible bank holiday days
• 3% employer pension contribution
• £200 total working from home budget
• Enhanced parental leave
• Up to 3 ‘childcare’ or ‘dependant’ days per year
• Mental health support through Spill
• Discounted gym memberships through GymFlex
• £50 per person per quarter team social budget
• Additional entertainment budget and company parties
• Office food and drinks
• Optional Bupa healthcare and dental care through salary deduction
• Eye care vouchers
• Seasonal Flu jabs
• Cycle to work scheme
• Payroll giving through salary sacrifice

We know that diverse ideas and perspectives drive innovation and make us better. We are creating an environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best work. We're an equal opportunities employer and all applications will receive consideration for employment without regard to ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age, or social background. If you need any reasonable accommodations to help you perform at your best during the application process, please let us know

We offer flexible working policies and a benefits package that includes a personal development budget, cycle to work scheme, and regular, varied events. This is an exciting opportunity to take an active part in shaping the future of an energetic company dedicated to revolutionising the way our cities work.

You don't need to have done all of these things before, but to excel in this role you will need to be keen to learn and comfortable working in a dynamic, fast paced environment. If you're close to what we're looking for, please consider applying. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable and passion goes a long way.