Mid-Level Backend Engineer - Driver Squad

About HIVED

At HIVED, we’re steamrolling forward as one of Europe’s fastest growing startups, and our momentum shows no signs of slowing.

Based in London, we are a climate and logistics start-up building the first sustainable parcel delivery network at scale, powered by a 100% electric fleet. In an ever-growing industry where unreliable service has long been the norm, HIVED has been built from the ground‑up to meet the demands of modern consumers and disrupt parcel delivery.

A tech company at heart, our talent and technology is laser‑focused on delivering the best possible delivery experience for end‑customers and meeting the needs of our retail partners. From our drivers to our data engineers, we are constantly working to improve this customer experience that makes us deliver better.

Already trusted by leading international brands such as John Lewis, Nespresso, Uniqlo, H&M brands and more, we are solidifying our position as the leaders in Europe to tackle this growing market.

Our tight‑knit team is made up of ex‑Revolut, DeepMind, Bain, HelloFresh, ASOS, Apple, and Google employees, and we are backed by some of Europe’s leading investors and VCs in climate‑tech, logistics and mobility including Planet A Ventures, Maersk Growth, Pale Blue Dot VC, Eka Ventures, NordicNinja VC and the British government. We’re passionate about driving innovation and redefining the future of delivery.

Role Overview

We're on a mission to make parcel delivery clean, and our drivers are at the heart of it. If you love getting stuck into meaty backend problems with real purpose, you'll feel right at home building the complex, distributed systems behind HIVED's emission‑free delivery network. Every feature you ship puts the right information in a driver's hands at exactly the right moment, helping them deliver smarter and greener from the moment they log on to the very last drop of the day.

In the Driver Squad, you'll take genuine ownership of problems across the backend systems and tooling that keep our drivers moving. You'll drive features end‑to‑end, from discovery through to deployment and monitoring, scoping the solution, weighing the trade‑offs, and contributing to the squad's engineering quality, all in close partnership with Product, UX, Operations, and fellow engineers. We're rebuilding parcel delivery from the ground up on a modern stack, with sustainability, flexibility, and scalability baked in from day one.

These are real challenges on our roadmap that you'll have a hand in cracking:

• Last metre navigation. Guide drivers to the exact closest access point to a customer's door, shaving precious seconds off every drop.
• Smarter routing. Teach our systems to recognise different types of addresses, like a business that's shut on a weekend, so we stop attempting drops that were never going to land. Fewer wasted miles means faster routes for drivers and lighter emissions.
• Telemetry that shapes behaviour. Turn on‑the‑road telemetry data into insight that helps us understand and positively influence how our drivers drive.
• Never lose a parcel. Build the tooling that detects and traces lost parcels, ideally before a customer ever notices.

Why Now

We've raised a 42M Series B led by NordicNinja, and a big slice of it is going straight into the engineering teams you'd be joining. This role exists because we're scaling fast.

The traction is real: over 6.5 million parcels delivered across London for the likes of John Lewis, Zara, Uniqlo, and Nespresso, 99% on‑time, and customer satisfaction north of 90% in an industry that averages around 32%. We're growing quickly and rolling out to new UK cities. We're also a certified B Corp and one of the only fully electric delivery networks around, so sustainability isn't a marketing line, it's the model.

And as the business grows, so do the engineering problems. Every new city and every jump in parcel volume reshapes what our systems need to handle, so you'll be solving real scaling challenges first‑hand. You'll also stay close to the operation, on the ground with drivers and ops rather than removed from the people your work actually serves.

What You'll Be Doing

• Ship features that matter. Take defined features from idea to live, breaking down the problem, weighing the trade‑offs, and helping the squad prioritise by impact.
• Write code you're proud of. Clean, tested, well‑documented, and built to scale, the kind of code the whole team can pick up and run with.
• Raise the bar together. Dive into code reviews as both author and reviewer, and spot improvements within the squad's scope before they become problems.
• Partner, don't just build. Work shoulder to shoulder with Product, UX, and Operations, let real data guide your calls, and share what you learn with the wider engineering team.
• Own it in production. Deploy, monitor, and once you're settled in, join the on‑call rota to keep things humming.

What We're Looking For

• A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, or a related STEM field (or equivalent practical experience).
• 3+ years of backend software engineering experience, including exposure to distributed systems.
• Proficiency in at least one typed backend language, with the ability to ramp up quickly on HIVED's stack.
• Experience designing, building, and running production services on a major cloud platform (AWS preferred).
• Experience with relational databases and Infrastructure as Code.
• Strong collaboration and written and verbal communication skills, with the confidence to work across disciplines.

Nice to have:

• Working knowledge of Go, TypeScript, and AWS.
• Exposure to logistics, mobility or operational‑domain systems.
• Evidence of self‑directed learning, such as personal projects or open source contributions.

Technologies We Use

• Golang
• AWS, CDK (TypeScript), Lambda, SQS, EventBridge, RDS (PostgreSQL)
• React, React Native
• GitHub, GitHub Actions
• Grafana, Loki
• Claude Code
• Event‑driven architecture and domain‑driven design

Interview Process

• Intro call with the hiring manager
• Live coding challenge solving an optimisation problem
• A take home case study, followed by a design discussion
• On‑site interview at our Shoreditch HQ (role and culture)

Our Values

• We Are Kind – Kind to the planet, our team and our partners. We listen with purpose, leave our egos at the door and aren't afraid to make difficult decisions. We must never confuse kindness with being "nice" - it requires us to be fair, consistent, honest, thoughtful and compassionate.
• We Are Tenacious – We fight every day to keep the customer promise, for every parcel entrusted to us. No matter how hard it gets or whatever stands in our way, we are relentless in our pursuit of excellence.
• We Are Curious – We never settle, constantly challenge convention and are never afraid to ask why. We believe there is always more to learn, always a better way, and that we're always only just getting started. We never fight the urge to be inquisitive, to understand the world around us and to explore where others might not.
• We Are Resourceful – Our planet's resources are scarce and our future depends on our ability to use them wisely. Waste is the enemy. We strive to do more with less, be more efficient and make the most of what we have.

How we reward our team

• Dynamic hybrid working environment with a diverse and driven team
• Huge opportunity for learning in a high growth environment, with progression opportunities based on success in the role
• 25 days of holiday allowance plus public holidays
• 1 Birthday Day Off + 2 Tenure‑Based Additional Days Off
• Subsidised Private Medical Insurance including dental, vision & mental health therapy
• Bi‑annual performance reviews and tailored development plans
• Competitive salary + EMI options scheme
• Annual compensation review
• Team lunch provided once a week
• Quarterly team socials and annual sports day (HIVED Olympics)
• Enhanced maternity/paternity/adoption policy as day 1 right
• Community volunteer days
• Cycle to work scheme
• Dog friendly office and depots
• MacBook Air or Windows Laptop (depending on your preference)

Want to learn more?

• Meet the team in 60 seconds: Behind the scenes with HIVED
• HIVED is B Corporation certified
• HIVED is #7 on The Sunday Times Tech 100
• Read how HIVED raised $42M to transform parcel delivery with AI and all‑electric logistics network
• Check the Impact Report 2024
• Why HIVED loves Go
• Keep up with HIVED here

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