Senior Engineer

As a Senior Engineer in Hastings Direct’s CIO-driven engineering function, you will steer end-to-end software delivery and shape technical direction. You’ll work across services, platforms, and data to deliver high-quality solutions, including AI-enabled components, within an agile environment. The role focuses on turning business goals into scalable technical outcomes and improving engineering quality through AI-assisted practices. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive responsible AI adoption and continuous improvement. This is a hybrid role with a strong emphasis on delivering impact within a growing, innovation-powered insurance business.

• Flexible hybrid working
• Competitive bonus scheme
• Life assurance 4x salary
• Pension contributions up to 10% matched
• Mental wellbeing programme
• 25 days annual leave + bank holidays

• Provide technical leadership and stakeholder management
• Design, build, modify, and support complex software systems to standards and engineering best practices
• Deliver end-to-end solutions across multiple services, platforms, and integrations (including AI components)
• Estimate tasks, mentor peers, and support professional development
• Debug, test, and optimise code for performance and reliability
• Leverage AI tools to accelerate development, testing, maintenance, and documentation
• Create prompts, evaluate AI outputs, and promote responsible AI adoption
• Ensure AI-enabled solutions meet security, privacy, governance, and cost requirements, while driving continuous improvement via new tools and ways of working

• Extensive hands-on experience with enterprise-level customer and employee-facing applications
• Experience delivering end-to-end solutions across front-end, services, and integration layers
• Strong software engineering fundamentals (OO design, design patterns, testing, TDD)
• Proficiency in one or more modern programming languages and ability to learn new technologies
• Strong understanding of APIs and integration patterns (REST, JWT, JSON, XML), CI/CD, DevOps, source control, automated testing frameworks
• Experience designing or supporting AI-enabled solutions with testing, governance
• Practical experience using AI-assisted engineering tools (prompt creation, evaluation of AI outputs)
• Continuous learning mindset and willingness to explore emerging tech and AI capabilities

• curiosity
• leadership
• collaboration
• AI-enabled software design
• AI integration and governance
• APIs and integration patterns (REST, JWT)