Senior Backend Engineer

We’re looking for a senior backend engineer who’s comfortable working across our stack. Your focus will be on backend systems, but you’ll also be open to occasionally contributing to our frontend or mobile apps. You’ll help shape what we build, not just how we build it.

About Ember

We're building the future of public transport — convenient, affordable, connected and zero-emission. Our goal is to make it easier and more enjoyable to get from A to B with Ember than it is with your own car.

Ember is a tech company, not a traditional bus operator. We've built a platform that coordinates our entire operation – everything from monitoring vehicles and controlling chargers to selling tickets and calculating ETAs. This allows us to use electric buses more intensively than anyone else in the world, leading to a massive reduction in emissions. It also helps us provide a much better passenger experience, with innovative features like demand-responsive stops.

We’re still tiny, with a handful of routes and 38 buses. The challenge is to scale this 100× whilst staying lean, increasing efficiency and delivering an even better product experience. We’ve raised equity from some of Europe’s leading climate VCs and are looking for mission-driven individuals who want to get on board and help take us to the next level.

Our tech stack

Our systems drive everything we do including booking tickets, tracking buses, controlling chargers, calculating ETAs, monitoring traffic and keeping passengers informed. We rely on the following tools and technologies:

• Python for our backend code

• Postgres for data storage

• Redis for caching

• Kafka for stream processing

• React for our frontend

• Clickhouse for analytics

• SwiftUI for our Driver iOS App

• AWS, Terraform, GitLab CI/CD, Docker and ECS to deploy and run our services

• Flutter for our on-board server running Android, which handles concession ticket validation with more on-board experience features to come.

What you will do
You’ll be joining a small, talent-dense team working on one of humanity’s most pressing challenges: decarbonisation. You’ll be a driving force in the product and technical development across all of Ember’s platform. You might work on the following or similar projects, taking them from conception to completion:

• Refining our estimates of when buses will arrive at stops to improve accuracy for both customers and internal tools.

• Developing the systems that control our chargers by optimising electricity use and prioritising vehicles that are about to enter service.

• Taking stewardship of several core backend systems, evolving coding patterns and improving testing approaches.

• Building functionality to store and manage diversions — which may include frontend work to display them and edit associated metadata.

Diversity and equality

At Ember, we support diversity across our team and customers. We work to ensure every employee feels respected and able to give their best, whether temporary, part-time or full-time. We’re happy to offer flexible working patterns where they make sense, are compassionate when it comes to time off and offer enhanced maternity and paternity leave.

Read more about our approach in our Equal Opportunities Policy.

What’s on offer

As well as a salary of £50,000 - £100,000 per annum, depending on your experience and skills, you'll be eligible for share options. You'll be expected to work from our office in central Edinburgh most days — because we value in-person communication, but there's flexibility around doing the odd day from home.

How do I apply?

Send your CV and a cover letter telling us why you're interested in the role. If you have code from projects which you’ve worked on, please send that too.

Who we're looking for
You should have a desire to get involved early in Ember's growth story, with a real opportunity to make your mark. Your approach to work and thinking is more important to us than specific industry experience. You should think that the following sounds a lot like you:

• Strong background: You’ll likely have several years of professional experience in a high-performing environment but we value ability and motivation even more.

• Talented engineer: You are driven, thoughtful and always hungry to learn more. You don't need to be an expert in all of the languages and frameworks we use, but you can quickly assimilate the knowledge you need to be effective in an unfamiliar area or codebase. Experience working on large-scale systems within a small company is a plus.

• Product thinker: We don’t have dedicated product managers — engineers at Ember help shape what we build, not just how we build it. You’ll take ownership of problems end-to-end, from idea to implementation.

• First principles thinker: You like to think things through from the ground up and are comfortable challenging conventional wisdom. You are pragmatic and value simplicity in your work.

• Unfazed by ambiguity: You’re comfortable starting from an unclear goal or half-formed idea. You don’t wait for everything to be defined — you ask good questions, bring structure to complexity, and move things forward.

• Motivation: You’re excited by our mission and the chance to make a tangible difference in a small, fast-growing company. Bus services are a real-world, tangible product where you can see the impact of your work on people’s daily lives.