Senior II. Software Engineer

Senior II Software EngineerD2C Domain — World of BooksLevel SE4 (Senior II) | Pécs, Hungary (Remote-friendly) | Reports to: Senior Engineering Manager, D2CAbout World of BooksWe are World of Books, the UK's largest second-hand book retailer and a B Corporation at the heart of thecircular economy. We rescue over 35 million books a year from landfill, giving them a new life through our ownwebsite, mobile app, and global marketplaces. With 60+ engineers based in Hungary, and product andleadership teams across the UK and US, we build tech that scales globally while doing good for the planet.The OpportunityDirect-to-Consumer (D2C) is our most customer-facing and commercially critical engineering domain — thegrowth engine of the business. It encompasses worldofbooks.com (our primary eCommerce storefront), theWorld of Books mobile app (iOS & Android), and the platforms that power catalogue, inventory, pricing andorders.The domain is run by a lean, cross-functional team end-to-end. As a Senior II Software Engineer, you'll be oneof the more senior individual technical contributors in your squad: trusted to design systems rather than justimplement tickets, to own the technical quality of your team's area, and to help set the pace on how the teamworks — including how it adopts AI-native, agent-first development practices.You'll work closely with your Senior Engineering Manager, Staff Engineers, VP of Engineering and the Directorof Architecture, translating business goals into sound technical decisions and raising the engineering bar acrossthe squad.What You Will OwnTechnical Ownership & Delivery● Own and deliver projects in service of quarterly domain goals, identifying problems worth solvingbefore being asked, and coordinating work across people and squads where needed.● Independently carry out research, analysis, design, development, testing, release, and ongoingmaintenance for new and existing software solutions.● Take ownership of individual sub-workstreams and represent the technical side of assigned projectsindependently.● Balance technical excellence with business outcomes; stay cost-aware and use business and customerreasoning to influence team priorities.Software & Architecture Design● Design clean, well-structured systems across service and API boundaries; simplify complex codebasesand help set technical standards for the team.● Own the architecture for your team's area, ensuring designs align with our wider technical direction,and document and share decisions clearly with the rest of engineering.● Contribute to the design and programming of the databases underpinning the applications your teamsupports.● Identify, justify, and communicate architectural improvement opportunities — working with yourteam and manager to get business buy-in and prioritisation.AI-Native Engineering● Regularly use unattended AI coding agents for end-to-end feature delivery, building and maintainingblueprint specs that let others operate them reliably.Contribute to — and help implement — your squad's agentic development strategy, going beyondpersonal use of AI tools to improving how the team uses them.● Apply strong context engineering and prompting practice so agent-produced code complies withfunctional and non-functional requirements (harness)Reliability, Quality & Support● Maintain the team's list of reliability improvements (reviewed monthly); lead reviews of servicehealth and readiness before major releases.● Own key monitoring dashboards and alerts for your team's services, ensuring issues are caught andresolved before they meaningfully impact customers.● Ensure your team follows World of Books's security standards; track compliance and raise gaps early.● Lead the response to larger incidents in your area, and drive improvements to runbooks andprocesses so issues don't recur.● Test all code you produce; investigate and resolve root causes of issues found through testing,running, or production use.People, Collaboration & Team Contribution● Mentor engineers earlier in their careers, offering honest, constructive feedback, and take an activerole in interviews — representing the team compellingly to candidates.● Put forward well-reasoned, justified recommendations on team composition, including hiring needs,to your manager.● Act as a proactive, positive, and collaborative member of the squad, working effectively with internaland external partners and stakeholders.● Communicate with clarity and influence stakeholders across audiences; initiate difficult or crucialconversations when needed, even when uncomfortable.● Participate fully in team and individual meetings; proactively flag anything reducing teameffectiveness and propose solutions.What We're Looking ForEssential● 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of independentlyowning significant pieces of work end-to-end.● Deep proficiency in at least one of Java/Spring Boot, Next.js/React, or Kotlin/Swift, with the ability tolearn fast.● Demonstrated system-level and architectural thinking — designs components and systems, not justindividual features.● Confident, day-to-day use of AI coding tools (e.g. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar) as acore part of how you write and ship software.● Strong testing discipline and end-to-end ownership of code quality.● Effective, proactive communication in English and Hungarian, able to work confidently with cross-functional and cross-border partners.● Working knowledge of database design and programming relevant to the applications you build.● Ethical, thorough, and dependable working practices, with full attention and care given to the team'sshared standards.Highly Valued● Experience with eCommerce or consumer-facing platforms (Shopify or equivalent), event-drivenarchitectures (Kafka/Pulsar), or native mobile delivery (iOS/Android).● Experience mentoring engineers or actively participating in interview processes.● Experience owning observability, service-level targets, or a reliability backlog for a service area.● Familiarity with architecture decision records and lean, low-overhead engineering process.● A track record of helping a team adopt AI-assisted development practices — not just using AI toolsyourself, but improving how the team uses them.What You'll GetA senior technical seat within one of World of Books's most commercially important engineeringdomains.● A clear path for career growth, with transparent expectations at every level.● Real investment in AI-assisted engineering — modern tooling and support to build your skills.● Remote-friendly working with occasional team meet-ups; HQ in Pécs, Hungary.● Competitive salary package.● Flexible working hours, 2 days of extra holiday, Health Fund (Egészségpénztári kártya), 15 days of sickleave topped up to 100%.● A mission you can be proud of: every book sold keeps something out of landfill.