Software Engineer, Liverpool: £40,000 to £50,000

This is the role for an engineer who is past the junior stage, wants genuine breadth rather than a narrow lane, and cares about how the next three years of their career compound. All of it, including the difficult parts, is below.

What will you actually do in this software engineer job?

You will work inside a small cross-functional squad, taking features from planning to production across the whole stack. Not frontend on Mondays and backend never; genuinely across it. Day to day:

Building features end to end in TypeScript and React on the frontend, and Node.js and .NET services behind them, deployed on Azure.
Owning your work through production: you write it, you review it with the squad, you ship it, you watch it in the analytics, you fix it when it misbehaves.
Giving and receiving real code review. Ours is a review culture with teeth, in the kindest possible way, and mid-level engineers are expected to review seniors' work too.
Contributing to two-week sprint planning with actual opinions about scope and sequencing.
Building the muscle for the next level: bigger slices of ownership over time, with a senior engineer actively backing your growth.

Day one, we expect you to be shipping small things within your first fortnight, with support. Nobody expects you to know our domain yet; we do expect you to be honest about what you do not know, because guessing quietly is how production incidents happen.

What will you work on?

The Happydance platform, used by enterprise clients including Domino's, Xero, Box, MGM Resorts and Criteo. Depending on your squad, that means features like conversational navigation, AI content generation, smart SEO automation, easy-apply overlays, analytics dashboards or bias detection that checks job content against 80 criteria. These are features with measurable outcomes, and squads see the numbers: the platform averages a 25% increase in annual traffic for clients and over 75% more sessions year on year. The tech stack page covers the how, and a week in the life covers the rhythm.

What are the honest hard parts of this role?

Breadth is demanding. Full stack here really means full stack, and there will be regular weeks where you are in unfamiliar territory, reading .NET when you are strongest in React or vice versa. If you find that stressful rather than stretching, a specialist role suits you better.

The quality bar will feel high at first. Enterprise clients and WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility requirements mean your first few pull requests will come back with more comments than you are used to. Almost everyone at this level goes through a humbling first month. It passes, and it is where the growth is.

Multi-tenancy will trip you. Your feature works for the tenant you tested. It behaves oddly for a client with a different configuration. Learning to think multi-tenant is a genuine skill and it takes most engineers six months to internalise.

The AI landscape moves under your feet. Some of what you learn this quarter will be revised next quarter. If you want a stable body of knowledge to master once, this product will frustrate you.

Who is this job not for?

Engineers who want to stay in one favourite framework and go deep only. This role is breadth-first by design.
Anyone who treats code review as a gate to pass rather than a conversation to learn from. Review is the culture here, and defensiveness in it wears everyone out.
People who need daily task-by-task direction. Squads set a sprint goal and trust you to navigate, asking when stuck rather than waiting to be told.
Job-hoppers optimising purely for the next salary jump. The value of this role compounds over two to three years of deliberate growth toward senior; if that arc does not interest you, the maths will not work for either of us.

How does growing toward senior actually work?

Not by waiting for a vacancy. There is a mapped progression from mid-level to senior, built on evidence: leading progressively larger workstreams, mentoring a graduate, making calls that hold up. Seniors here earn £53,000 to £65,000, so the step is worth having, and the career progression page sets out how long it typically takes and what tends to slow people down. We would rather show you the path than promise you a timeline.

How do you apply?

Through this page, with a CV and three or four sentences on something you built that you are honestly proud of, and one thing about it you would now do differently. That second half matters more to us. Then it is a conversation about your experience, a practical exercise rooted in the real work, and time with your would-be squad. The full interview process is documented stage by stage, and everyone gets a reply.

Frequently asked questions

What is the salary for this software engineer job in Liverpool?

£40,000 to £50,000, and where you land in the band is set by demonstrated capability during the process, then confirmed in writing before you decide anything. Against a Liverpool average of £43,497, the top of the band is roughly 15% above market. What that salary buys here versus London is laid out on the cost of living comparison.

I am strong on frontend but lighter on backend. Should I still apply?

Yes, if the breadth genuinely appeals. We hire for trajectory at this level, not symmetry. Be upfront about the gap and expect the practical exercise to explore how you learn, not to catch you out. If you would rather stay frontend-only, the Frontend Engineer role is the honest choice.

How many years of experience do I need?

We do not set a number, because years are a poor proxy. The realistic shape is someone who has shipped production software for a while, no longer needs close supervision, and is not yet operating at senior level. If you are unsure which side of the line you sit on, apply and say so.

Will I get to work on the AI features?

Over time, very likely, since AI capability threads through most squads. But your first months will be wherever your squad's roadmap points, which may be less glamorous and just as important. We will not promise you the shiny bits to get you in the door.

How soon would I ship to production?

Within your first two weeks, something small and real, with a reviewer alongside you. It is the fastest way to learn the codebase and the safest way to learn our deployment path.

See the rhythm before you decide

The best test of a mid-level role is what an ordinary week looks like, so read a week in the life and then weigh this against the other open roles. If the ordinary weeks sound good, not just the highlights, that is when applying makes sense.

Ready to apply?

Send a CV and a short note about a technical decision you are proud of. We read every application and reply to every applicant, including the noes. Applications go to the Happydance people team.

Apply now See the interview process

See all jobs at Happydance for roles beyond engineering.