About the role
Job Description
Software Engineer - Python & AWS
Genomics England is hiring an experienced Software Engineer with strong Python and AWS experience to join our Scientific R&D team, which sits within our Generate Research Data (GRD) service. GRD works across our organisation and with external partners to generate, obtain and enrich high-quality genomic, multi-omic and clinical datasets.
The service supports the journey from new research studies and emerging technologies through to preparing data for release into the National Genomic Research Library (NGRL), helping enable research, discovery and clinical impact.
The Scientific R&D team develops and tests new genomic and multi-omic approaches and provides scientific expertise across GRD. The team operates wet-lab and bioinformatics capabilities, including long-read sequencing, data analysis, technology assessment and pilot development. It supports programmes such as Cancer 2.0 and Generation Study-related discovery work, while investigating how emerging technologies can be applied to future research.
This Software Engineer role develops and maintains data processing systems within the Scientific R&D team, working across a mixture of cloud and on-premises infrastructure to support the assessment of cutting-edge sequencing technologies for clinical genome sequencing.
What you’ll be doing:
* Thinking through, designing and enabling the future facing research cohorts end to end
* Writing clean, scalable Python code, following engineering best practices
* Developing working solutions to enable processing of long read data, including future facing solutions in AWS
* Designing and maintaining services on AWS, with a focus on resilience and performance
* Working on distributed systems that handle big data processing at scale
* Building and evolving our test automation frameworks
* Troubleshooting issues, working closely with colleagues
* Staying up to date with the latest tools, libraries and tech approaches
* Using GitLab, Jira, and Confluence to work effectively in a modern agile setup
What you’ll bring:
* Strong Python skills and experience building scalable backend services
* Hands-on experience with AWS, microservice architectures, and containerised environments
* Experience working on data-heavy or distributed systems
* Familiarity with agile delivery and test-driven development
* Self-sufficiency combined with a collaborative mindset and openness to learning from others
Nice to have:
* Hands on orchestration skills and experience using Terraform
* Experience with big data tools (e.g. Spark, AWS Glue, or similar)
* Strong grasp of code review best practices
* Some knowledge of JavaScript
* Cloud Migration/AWS knowledge
* Understanding/experience working with orchestration and data flows
* Solution building expertise
Qualifications
BSc in Computer Science or equivalent experience
Additional Information
Closing date for applications: Wednesday 18th November 2026 at 23:00 (UK time)
Salary from: £73,500 per annum
Please note: we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:
* Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and also the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required). * Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits. * Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), an Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice scheme and a Give As You Earn scheme. * Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required). * Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme. * Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.
Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace
Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.
Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.
Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.
We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.
Culture
We have four key behaviours that represent what we would like Genomics England to feel like and the culture we want to encourage, in order for us to achieve our mission. These behaviours help us all work well together, deliver on our outcomes, celebrate our successes and share feedback with each other. You can read about these and other aspects of our culture here Culture | Genomics England
Blended working model
Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.
Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.
Onboarding background checks
As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.