Junior Software Engineer job at Edinburgh Full Time

The first few years of your engineering career shape how you think for the rest of it. We want juniors who are curious, who pick things up fast, and who take that early learning seriously. You’ll join a squad working on real production code from day one, with senior engineers around you whose job includes growing you. AI is reshaping how all of us write software, and you’ll learn that on the job, alongside the fundamentals.

This is an IC role with a clear path forward, and we invest in that path.

What you’ll do

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  Build foundational skills on real production work. Well-defined tasks with senior engineers supervising. The work is small in scope but real, and your code ships and serves customers.
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  Learn the craft deliberately. Code review feedback, pairing, documentation, tests. These are the fundamentals that compound, and we protect time for them.
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  Use the tools well. Source control, your dev environment, CI, observability, and AI tooling, which we treat as part of the workflow. Try things and bring back what you find.
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  Communicate clearly. Tell your team what you’re working on, why, how it’s going, and where you’re stuck. Asking for help is part of the job.
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  Improve the docs. Whenever something tripped you up, write the explanation that would have helped. The codebase improves, and so do you.

The shape we’re hiring for

For juniors, we hire for shape more than experience.

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  Curiosity. You’re interested in how systems work, why decisions were made, and what you don’t yet understand.
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  Learning velocity. You pick things up fast from pairing, code review, docs, AI tools, and conversations. You don’t wait for someone to teach you.
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  Emerging ownership. You complete what you start, ask when stuck, and take responsibility for your share of the work.
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  Clear communication. You say what’s going well, what isn’t, and what you need.
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  Change disposition. You enjoy that the work is changing fast. That’s part of the appeal.

You’ll be a strong fit if

• You’re at the start of your career: an internship, bootcamp, computer science degree, self-taught with a portfolio, or early in your first role.
• You can write code in at least one mainstream language (Python, TypeScript, Java, Go). Not yet expertly, but clearly enough to do the job.
• You’ve used Git, written tests, and shipped something: a personal project, course work, or an internship.
• You’re comfortable using AI tooling in your workflow, and you treat it as a way to learn faster rather than a shortcut to think less.
• You enjoy explaining what you’ve learned, even imperfectly, because that’s how it sticks.

You might be a less good fit if

• You’re looking for a place that hands you fully-specified tasks and expects nothing else.
• You’d rather not have feedback on your work, or you find pair programming uncomfortable on principle.
• You’d prefer to work alone with code and not interact much with people.
• You’d rather not use AI tooling, or you treat it as a workaround for learning the fundamentals rather than a way to learn them faster.
• You’re looking for a fast track to management. This role is about technical growth.

Requirements

How we work

Opus 2 builds the platform that leading legal teams use to run their most complex work: a distributed, multi-tenant SaaS platform with API-first surfaces, where security, privacy, and compliance are first-class concerns. The stakes for our customers are real, so we care about quality. We also move fast and ship, because the alternative is irrelevance.

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  Strong ownership. Squads own their products end-to-end, from the customer outcome through to operating them in production.
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  Pragmatic engineering. We favour simple, testable solutions over premature abstraction. We use data where it informs a real decision.
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  A learning and improvement culture. We’re building an engineering organisation that learns and adapts at the pace AI is forcing on the work. That’s the bar for hiring, growth, and how we run the team.
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  Coaching as part of seniority. Senior engineers help juniors, mid-levels, and each other grow. We protect that time on calendars.

A work in progress

Opus 2 is in real transition. AI is reshaping how our customers work and how we build software, and we’re investing in the engineering organisation to keep pace. Some of that is already settled; other parts are still being shaped.

If you want a fully paved path, this isn’t it yet. If you want to be an agent of change in a team that’s clear about where it’s going and pragmatic about how to get there, there’s real leverage here. We’re hiring people who’ll help us shape this, not just slot into it.

Tech you’ll work with

We pick tools to fit the problem, and we have a clear sense of where we’re heading. On the backend we’re investing in Python, Go, and TypeScript. Java and PHP are in established parts of the platform, and we’ll keep them well-tended where it makes sense. If you light up about Python or Go, you’re in the right place.

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  Backend: Python, Go, TypeScript (where we’re investing); Java and PHP (established services)
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  Frontend: React
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  Deployment: Kubernetes primary; serverless where it’s the better fit
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  Cloud: AWS
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  Data: Postgres, MongoDB, OpenSearch / Elasticsearch, vector stores
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  AI: GenAI features already in production (LLMs, retrieval, agentic workflows), with more on the way

You don’t need to know any of these on day one. You should be ready to learn the ones you don’t.

Benefits

Working for Opus 2

• A real engineering role at a growing company where AI is in production and shapes how software gets built. Not a junior slot doing make-work.
• Investment in your growth: protected coaching time on senior engineers’ calendars, code review that grows you, and exposure to challenging problems matched to your level.
• A clear path forward, with someone whose job it is to help you get there.
• Contributory pension plan.
• 33 days annual holidays, flexible working, and length of service entitlement.
• Health Insurance.
• Loyalty Share Scheme.
• Enhanced Maternity and Paternity.
• Employee Assistance Programme.
• Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice.
• Cycle to Work Scheme.
• Calm and Mindfulness sessions.
• A day of leave to volunteer for charity or dependent day.
• Regular Company Social Events.
• Yearly Development Retreat.