We're Valla, and we're looking for a Django Software Engineer to join our team. Our mission is to help the millions of people in the UK that can't afford high legal fees to get justice.
- Full-time permanent role
- UK Remote, Scotland preferred
- £40,000-50,000 annual salary dependent on experience
- Annual learning budget and conference days
Valla is on a mission to make legal support affordable for everyone. Our revolutionary new product helps people to take their employer to tribunal — even if they cannot afford a lawyer. Valla was founded by two senior women from the tech industry who were tired of seeing marginalised people being treated unfairly by their employers and not being able to afford justice.
We are an early-stage startup founded in 2020. We have raised a pre-seed round of investment, and we now have a working prototype that we're testing with users. We're now looking for a Django developer to expand and build out our software engineering team.
Valla helps people to manage their workplace issues from grievance to tribunal in a simple, affordable way. We empower people to navigate the employment tribunal process by providing clear step-by-step instructions, and powerful legal tools that are designed for non-lawyers to use. When people need help, they can also find and invite legal advisors to look over their legal letters, forms or statements. Our product could have the same impact as flat pack furniture had on the furniture business!
You would be working directly with our co-founder and CTPO Kate, and on our core product which is built on top of Django/AWS stack. You'll be joining us at an exciting time, and will be able to influence key decisions and see our product evolve from prototype to scale. Within our team, you will be able to see the direct impact of your work;from talking to users to understand the benefits of a feature to seeing everyday folks using that feature.
Your day-to day-will be:
- Developing Valla's web application to make sure we deliver value to our users
- Working with designers to build appealing visual design and user experience including translating designer mockups and wireframes in front end code
- Building good testing practices and monitoring and alerting for our app
- Making sure that non-functional requirements such as security, accessibility, performance, scalability and usability are considered when architecting solutions
You are a software developer with some experience under your belt. We are not specifying a number of years of experience, only that you have experience in a similar role and can tell us about the products and services you've worked on, what you liked about it and how you contributed to your previous team's goals.
You will have worked with the Django web framework (and Python) on a day-to-day level, shipping multiple production-level applications or features. You will have a good understanding of software design principles and development life cycle, and have worked in an agile manner. You are curious and enjoy researching and finding technical solutions to solve customer needs - as well as how to implement them safely.
As a bonus, you might have the following skills or experience (and if you do, please tell us in the application form - its important that these are definitely not essential):
- Strong working knowledge of frontend Javascript frameworks (such as React, Angular or Vue)
- Experience in API design and development
- Experience managing infrastructure on a major Cloud environment (AWS is preferred)
- Experience working in a startup or fast growing scale-up
We support people returning from career breaks so please do not hesitate to apply.
Valla is based in the UK and fully remote. Our co-founders are based in Edinburgh, and most of the team are based in Scotland, but we don't mind where you are in the UK. If you are based outside of the UK and are open to a contract role, please let us know in the 'additional information' part of the application form. However, we are not able to sponsor candidates so you will need to already have the right to work in the UK.
This is a full-time role and your hours can be flexible and we would be open to job shares - just let us know when you apply what you're looking for. If you have any question about whether or not this role might work for you and your specific needs, please just drop us a line at kate@valla.uk and we can talk it through.
The salary for this role is between £40,000 and £50,000 depending on your experience. If this range is far below your expectations and you think you would still be a great fit, please just get in touch at kate@valla.uk and we can talk.
Additional benefits include:
- Flexible working (see below)
- 33 days holiday
- 3% Company pension scheme
- Access to our company options scheme
- Your choice of equipment up to £2,500 including a new Macbook or PC, Monitor, Webcam, headphones
- £500 learning budget each year, plus 3 days working time for conference attendance
We care a LOT about building a diverse team — we want the team building our product to be as diverse as the people it's built for. We know that black lives matter, trans rights are human rights, and that the patriarchy is toxic for everyone. You can read our company code of conduct to see how we work.
If you want to get an idea of what we're like as people, here's a video of our CEO Danae talking about burnout and productivity and here's a video of our CTPO Kate geeking out about gardening.
How to applyPlease apply here. The interview process includes an initial Zoom or phone call, then a technical interview with Kate and another tech team member, with the final round being a collaborative pairing session and a culture fit call with the founders.
We respect the time that you take to apply and will send everyone a decision on their application whether or not they were successful.
Closing date: 31st July