Senior Software Engineer

Description:

Transition Zero is a climate analytics nonprofit providing system modelling data, software, and analysis to support global energy transition planning and decision-making. The Senior Software Engineer (Backend) will play a key role in building and maintaining the organization’s data and modelling platform, which enables energy systems analysis to be auditable, accessible, and reproducible. The platform integrates satellite-derived GHG emissions data, forecasts, weather data, and energy systems modelling, accessible via browser interfaces, APIs, and a Python client library.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, implement, and maintain backend services exposing datasets and modelling capabilities via versioned APIs (OpenAPI 3.1).

• Productionize containerized services (Docker, Cloud Build, Cloud Run) orchestrated with Airflow, Dagster, or similar tools.

• Contribute to architectural and system design ensuring scalability, resilience, and cost-efficiency.

• Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested Python code following CI/CD best practices.

• Embed observability and operability into services using monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices.

• Collaborate with product owners, analysts, and energy systems modelers to deliver user-aligned features.

• Mentor junior engineers, participate in code reviews, and maintain comprehensive documentation.

• Apply a site reliability engineering (SRE) mindset to ensure reliable and performant services.

• Participate in Agile ceremonies and innovation initiatives.

Experience & Skills Required:
Essential:

• 5+ years professional software development experience.

• Strong Python development experience, including scripting and libraries.

• Cloud-native deployment experience (Docker, Cloud Run, Kubernetes).

• API development with frameworks such as FastAPI or Flask.

• Relational database design and SQL scripting.

• Git-based version control and CI/CD workflow experience.

• Unit, component, and integration testing focus.

• Observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).

• Strong collaboration, communication, and Agile skills.

Beneficial:

• Experience with GCP services (BigQuery, GCS, Cloud Build).

• Experience with Airflow, Dagster, Terraform.

• Working with geospatial/Earth observation data (PostGIS, GDAL, GeoPandas, Google Earth Engine).

• Knowledge of energy systems, climate science, and environmental modeling.

• Experience with linear or mixed-integer programming (MILP).

• Post-graduate education in STEM.

• Experience with high-performance languages (Rust, C++, Go, Java).

Benefits & Highlights:

• Competitive salary based on experience.

• Enhanced pension scheme (auto-enrollment from day 1).

• 25 days annual leave plus discretionary days.

• 20 days annual allowance to work from anywhere in the world.

• Hybrid working and core working hours model.

• Home office setup allowance.

• Annual training budget and dedicated leave for courses.

• Enhanced parental leave (16 weeks fully paid).

• Private healthcare after probation.

• Annual team offsites.

Company Overview:
TransitionZero is a climate analytics nonprofit established in 2021, providing tools, data, and software for energy transition analysis. Funded by organizations like Google.org, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the European Climate Foundation, the team works globally to enable actionable insights for decision-makers in energy and environmental sectors.