Senior Software Engineer

About Yoto

Yoto is a screen-free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels - think LEGO, Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Sony. We also create Yoto Originals like this one.

• Featured in Bloomberg’s 25 UK startups to watch in 2023.
• Second fastest growing tech company in the UK, in Deloitte Fast50 2023.
• Named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Inventions of 2020
• Winner in Good Housekeeping’s 2022 Parenting Awards.
• We’re 110+ employees spread across the UK, US and France.. and growing!

We’re on a mission to be the soundtrack of childhood, and help families on their own unique adventures. By creating products that inspire independent play, we help families discover and grow with an inspiring world of audio - and we would like you to help us achieve it! 

Yoto’s Platform Team

We’re a team at the heart of the Yoto ecosystem. We work in a mature, high-trust async environment with a lot of independence. Everyone is able to contribute ideas and be part of decisions. We solve a broad range of problems - from research and development of new products, features or content formats to maintaining a fleet of hundreds of thousands of devices and delivering TBs of audio - you’ll be collaborating with other teams within Yoto on a daily basis.

Despite being a platform team, we are still directly impacting and very close to our users and customers due to the nature of the systems we own.

What you’ll be doing:

• Work in a remote, asynchronous-first environment. Co-locating (typically at our London, King’s Cross office) at least once a month.
• Work using managed, serverless services in AWS (Lambda, IoT/MQTT, API Gateway, MongoDB Atlas, DynamoDb, S3).
• Code using a Node.JS stack - mainly TypeScript, with some JavaScript and React, in an automated test-first environment.
• Work closely with product managers, engineers, and other key stakeholders to plan, execute, and deliver the next generation of our purchasing infrastructure.
• Manage the tech you are co-responsible for - addressing cost, inconsistency, operational debt and code debt.
• Design and implement reusable, highly performant solutions that can rapidly scale up and down to handle our peak loads.
• Work in a environment that values software consistency and documentation-first development as core principles.
• Keep a high engineering standard by applying and teaching key principles such as, consistency, single responsibility, the scout rule, and least privilege.

What you’ll bring:

• Expert knowledge of TypeScript or JavaScript (ES6 and ESM) and applying code craft and test-first coding.
• Hands on experience designing and building REST (or GraphQL) APIs. 
• Good understanding of NoSQL (and SQL) DBs.
• Good experience and understanding of AWS services, in particular APIs backed by Lambda.
• High autonomy and accountability, with good presence for knowing when to collaborate or seek help.
• Proven experience designing and implementing scalable, cost efficient, and secure solutions

Salary: £70,000 - £88,000 based on experience. We never want to miss out on speaking to great candidates, so please don't let our banding put you off getting in touch. You never know what might be in our future plan and how well you might fit!

What you can expect from us:

• Hybrid working with a choice based approach - we would love you to come into the office as much as possible, with a minimum of once or twice a month.
• Generous share options - so you're invested in Yoto's success.
• A Work from Anywhere policy that gives you the opportunity to work from a different location for a temporary period.
• 25 days’ holiday per year, plus bank holidays.
• Extra leave for service - 1 extra day for every year worked after you hit your 2 year anniversary, up to a maximum of 5 extra days.
• Life Assurance cover (3 x your salary) from day one.
• Income Protection (long term sickness cover of 75% of your salary for up to 2 years) from day one and company sick pay that increases with length of service
• Enhanced parental leave policy.
• Personal Learnerbly development budget of £200 per year (awarded after successful completion of your probation).
• Your own Yoto player and starter pack of cards!
• 2x volunteer days a year.
• A collaborative tech-focused creative environment.
• Company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity

At Yoto, our mission is to be the soundtrack of childhood, and help families on their own unique adventures. Our success is rooted in unwavering commitment to our core principles—Kids in Control, Helping Families, Building with Empathy, Embrace Difference, and Playfully Inquisitive.

At Yoto, flexible working and autonomy are key to us. We support working parents because we know that life and work need to work together. And just as we share audio content from a diverse community of creators, we also strive to build a diverse and inclusive team. Our passionate DE&I group raises new voices, beliefs, and perspectives to help everyone at Yoto feel heard. Check out our website for more info on our approach to People and Planet.