Software Engineer

Laka Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Software Engineer

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Hello, we're Laka

You might not have heard of us yet - that's OK, you've found us now - come and find out more about our journey...

Founded in 2017, Laka set out to transform insurance by connecting passionate cyclists to form a collective and protect their bikes for when things go wrong - a better model for insurance was born. For once people come first in insurance by fairly sharing the cost amongst each other. We exist to rewrite the rules of insurance so it's something people stand with, not against.

Our model: Laka makes sure everything runs smoothly for The Collective - from exceptionally fast claims, splitting the cost fairly, guaranteeing a maximum price and all the other heavy lifting of a regulated insurance business. For that service, the collective pays Laka a fee relative to the claims in a month.

The role

Engineering at Laka
Our Engineering team are at the heart of how Laka's platform is built and operated - their mission being to fix, build and grow. The current team is made up of 12 superstars working in squads in fortnightly sprints, and as Laka continues to expand and pace, we need to add more firepower to the party!

We're searching for passionate and capable engineers who want to work on something that's more than ‘just another app'. We're changing the way things are done, and the way people feel about insurance - through a team of great people coming together to build great software.

We don't expect you to know everything when you join (or ever, in fact) - we encourage you to learn as you go, through training and mentoring, so you can develop existing skills and learn new ones.

We're a small, remote-first, team, if you come to work with us then the role will grow with and around your experience, personal goals and professional development.

Our full-stack includes: Node.js, Golang, MySQL, React, Redux, GraphQL (Apollo), gRPC (protobufs), ActiveMQ, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP, MongoDB, and Redis.

What you'll be getting up to:

• Helping us build out our microservices platform, delivering a unique insurance model to cyclists across Europe
• Building REST APIs for our partners
• Building cloud app/services using a modern tech stack built using JavaScript, GoLang, with a SQL database, and hosted on AWS via Kubernetes
• Building out our React UIs, which includes internal and external applications
• Working collaboratively with other teams within Laka - helping to problem solve, providing excellent support and solutions, and overall contributing to the continued success of the business.

You'll be successful by:

• Delivering good quality code contributions
• Having excellent communication and collaboration skills
• Championing user empathy - you know what it takes to build great UX
• Working as part of a squad, and taking part in our agile ceremonies, peer reviews and pair programming

Location: we're remote-first, so we're happy for this role to be based anywhere in the UK, with occasional travel to our London or Bristol offices.

Requirements

This role will be a great fit if you:

• Have commercial experience with backend development. We work with Node.js and Golang
• Have commercial experience working with a modern frontend framework - we use React, Next.js and Redux
• Are comfortable with REST APIs as well as GraphQL
• Are comfortable with SQL
• You know why testing matters, and you have experience of unit testing and end-to-end testing. We use Jest and Cypress
• Are a good communicator and team player - great pairing is a must for us
• Feel comfortable with a strong culture of mutual support and feedback
• Are keen to learn new things and recognise when it's time to use the 'best tools for the job' rather than trying to 'make things fit'
• Are comfortable working within a remote-first team.

Before you apply, please make sure that you currently have the right to work in the UK (we're really sorry, but we're not able to provide visa sponsorship for this role).

Benefits

Our perks:

• Remote-first way of working: you choose whether you work from home or our beautiful offices in London & Bristol.
• Share options: we want you to be rewarded for Laka's success - everyone in the business is granted share options when they join.
• Company bonus scheme: if the company hits its targets, you'll get an annual cash bonus.
• Annual leave: 25 days holiday (plus bank holidays), with the option to roll over up to 5 days per year.
• Pension scheme: Laka pays 3% of your base salary into your pension to help you save for the future.
• Private medical insurance: we'll give you individual private cover, with the option to add partners & dependants too (at a small cost).
• Home set-up allowance: in addition to letting you choose the kit you want, we'll also give you a one-off budget of £200 to get anything else you want in order to make your homeworking environment a comfortable place to be.
• Monthly lunch on us: £15 on the first Wednesday of each month to enjoy lunch on Laka.
• Company-wide events: we love getting everyone together as much as possible.
• Regular socials: we also give each office a budget for a monthly social activity.
• Laka swag: we'll give you some lovely Laka kit to get you started.
• Laka credit: for all you cyclists, we'll give you £10 credit per month towards insuring your bike(s) with us.
• Mental health support: unlimited support via Spill, including one-to-one therapy sessions.

Belonging at Laka
We're committed to building and sustaining a business that promotes diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.