Full Stack Developer

Spark Tutoring is the UK’s fastest-growing online education & tutoring provider. Our mission is to completely transform the world of UK Education via our collective of young, high-achieving and, most importantly, relatable undergraduates. We pride ourselves on our high-quality, dynamic and results-based service which has equipped over 5000 students in the UK with the necessary skills and expertise to unleash their full potential and become the leaders of tomorrow. We are looking for a self-sufficient, full-stack software engineer with strong product sense and experience managing projects from 0 to 1. Someone who loves building elegant, scalable solutions and can communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders. This is a unique opportunity that will fast forward your career by 20 years. This vacancy is closing this August! if you're a driven, resourceful, and collaborative fullstack developer who thrives in independent roles and loves bringing ideas to life from start to finish, don’t miss out and apply now to join the Spark Team! To find out more, our website is sparktutoring.com As we progress in enhancing this support and aim not only to establish ourselves as the leading education platform in the UK but also to expand internationally, seizing this distinctive and exclusive opportunity to join the Spark Team will undoubtedly contribute significantly to your recognition for future success. Key Tasks and Responsibilities Design, build, and maintain full-stack features across our Django backend and Convex application layer, working closely with PostgreSQL and Pinecone for data and retrieval infrastructure. Design and implement AI/LLM-powered features, including retrieval-augmented generation pipelines, embeddings, prompt design, and evaluation. Own the performance, scalability, and security of internal server builds and infrastructure. Act as the technical point of contact for non-technical team members, diagnosing and resolving issues and bugs as they arise. Maintain clear, up-to-date documentation for builds, features, and architectural decisions, and continuously improve departmental SOPs and technical knowledge-sharing resources. Provide regular, clear reporting on technical progress and upcoming work to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Lead and participate in testing sessions with stakeholders to validate new functionality before release. Drive code quality through testing, refactoring, code review, and adherence to development best practices. Contribute to technical planning and solution design - estimating effort, identifying risk, and recommending scalable approaches for future development. Essential Knowledge & Expertise Essential Skills 5+ years' experience as a full-stack developer, with a track record of senior-level ownership (architecture, technical decision-making, mentoring). Strong hands-on experience with Django and Python backend development. Solid experience with PostgreSQL, including schema design and query optimisation. Practical experience integrating vector databases (Pinecone or equivalent) for search or retrieval use cases. Experience building AI/LLM-powered features - RAG pipelines, embeddings, prompt engineering, or evaluation frameworks. Comfortable working with modern reactive backend platforms such as Convex, or willing to learn quickly. Strong experience with React, including building for mobile. Proficient with Git/GitHub for version control and collaborative development. Comfortable designing and integrating APIs (REST/GraphQL), including third-party and AI provider APIs. Understanding of data privacy and security best practice, particularly when handling user data in AI/vector search contexts. Excellent written communication - able to produce clear technical documentation and explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders. Proven ability to work effectively in a fully remote, self-directed environment. Strong testing and code quality discipline (unit/integration testing, code review). Desirable Skills Experience with Expo or native mobile tooling alongside React Native. Familiarity with deploying and managing infrastructure on Vercel and DigitalOcean. Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and containerisation (Docker). Experience with LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and prompt/eval tooling. Prior experience mentoring engineers. Startup or fast-paced product environment experience. Familiarity with Google Workspace tools and Loom for async documentation and communication. Hours: Full-time (40+ hours per week). Willingness to be on-call outside standard working hours, including occasional evenings and weekends when required. What’s In It For You? Fully remote role with flexible hours. Direct creative and strategic impact on a fast scaling startup. Collaborative, ambitious, and fast moving team. Friends, Family & Team Discount on Spark Tutoring services Full time role Long term role with scope to expand responsibilities as Spark grows. Quarterly team retreats, mostly in tropical locations! The Compensation: Base: £18k to £24k Per Annum Bonus Structure: Quarterly, growing with the company Thank You! If this sounds like the right opportunity for you, we'd love to hear from you. Apply now to join our rapidly growing team and help build the technology shaping the future of online education.