Engineering @ Open

At Open, we exist because we believe that Insurance does not have to be seen as complicated or costly. Creating technology so our customers can enjoy smart and intuitive insurance experiences is at the core of Open’s development philosophy. When we do this, we’re building modern infrastructure that brings the wonder into insurance.

With a truly end-to-end approach, we build all of our own technology. Our engineering team alongside our AI and data science team aim to give customers better insurance prices. We create the insurance experience our customers deserve, not the one they expect. The team specialises in Python (Django) and Angular, and uses the latest AWS tools to support development.

What you’ll do 

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to be Open’s first engineer on the ground in London and lead our expansion into the UK and Europe.

As a Principal Engineer, you will be a member of our Technology leadership team, reporting to the GM of Technology. You will bring core technology and domain expertise to inform technical strategy and architecture vision. You will lead and drive adoption of best practices that enable technology teams to thrive. You will work closely with Product, Design, Data, and various stakeholders to deliver business and customer value each step of the way. You will grow engineers in their career, and shape the future of our technology platform and roadmap. In this role, you will:

• Design and implement solutions to complex and novel problems, including adoption of new tools, migration to new platforms, remediate critical/wide-impacting issues, and remove obsolete systems and code.
• Review code and technical designs from across technology teams, championing and establishing well-architected patterns and best practices.
• Drive continuous improvement and technical uplift initiatives for the technology organisation.
• Provide expert consultancy across the business, with a particular focus on scalable, reliable, performant, and secure cloud application solutions.
• Develop and evolve Open’s technical roadmap, documentation quality, and platform health keeping both present and future business needs in mind.
• Proactively collaborates with others to share knowledge and resolve issues.
• Identifies, gains support and ensures execution of technical direction and strategy for Open’s technology teams.
• Keep abreast of technology, security and privacy trends to lead informed evolutions of Open’s technology and architecture strategy.

As part of this role, we will support you to relocate to London, UK after spending your first 4-6 months with the team in Sydney preparing for Open’s launch into the UK and Europe.

Requirements

What you’ll bring

• Deep knowledge in Python (Django), AWS Cloud infrastructure, and Docker.
• Experienced in Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, and Git+ workflows to support code review and release of software.
• Proven experience in architectural patterns across products that contain Microservices and Message/Event Driven Architecture.
• Expert practitioner of SOLID principles, and can coach their adoption through code reviews.
• Strong experience operating distributed production systems at scale, with well-placed instrumentation and excellent debugging capabilities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• A Bachelors/Masters degree in computer science or a related field is preferred, but not necessary.
• Experienced collaborating effectively with teams across time zones, and geographics. 

• 1+ year of experience as a people manager in a product-led company.

Role location

This role will start in Sydney, Australia, with expectation to transition to London, UK after 4-6 months. Open will support the visa sponsorship needed for this relocation.

Benefits

Why Open?

Open is on a mission to provide the best insurance experiences, at the best price, for the world. Insurance is one of the world’s least digitally mature industries - for years it’s remained confusing, paper-based and heavily intermediated. We launched in 2016 to build a global, AI-powered platform that digitises the entire insurance process, making it transparent, less costly and more reliable.

It's an exciting time to join Open and be part of a tech scale-up. We provide our team with:

• Highly competitive compensation, including share options - we believe in paying people what they're worth and having everyone in our company share in our success
• High levels of autonomy and trust so you can do your best work
• Growth opportunities internally - as you grow, your role can too
• Flexible working - we are about impact, not time at your desk.
• We encourage freedom and responsibility, including the ability to work from anywhere
• Annual allowance for professional development - use it towards a gym membership, professional coaching, a conference. Whatever matters most to you

We're proud to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and are committed to providing an inclusive environment for all employees. Our culture is truly open, we're continuously challenging each other to live our values, and aren't afraid to raise questions when we fall short. Most importantly, Open is for those that want to create change and have an impact. If that sounds like you, apply for this role and let's build the future of insurance together.