Senior Software Development Engineer

Reposted 5 Days Ago
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Cape Town, Western Cape, ZAF
Hybrid
Senior level
Logistics • Transportation
The Role
Design and build production systems, tackle complex challenges, mentor other engineers, and influence technical direction within an agile organization.
Summary Generated by Built In

Got Drive? Join AnyVan as we make moving anything, anywhere miles better and build a career that moves just as fast.


Back in 2009, our CEO Angus saw half-empty vans everywhere and knew there had to be a better way! That's how AnyVan began. He set out to create the world's most efficient logistics technology and help halve the number of wasted miles by filling those empty vans.


Since then we've become the nation's favourite way to move, with over 150k five-star reviews and 5 million customers in the UK and Europe. Our team of 400 AnyVanners across London, Cape Town and Bogota is proving that moving doesn't have to cost the earth by helping save 8,520 tonnes of Carbon each year.

Build systems that move the real world, with AI at the core

At AnyVan, we're building one of the most sophisticated logistics optimisation platforms in Europe. We connect customer demand with real-time driver availability, using intelligent matching, dynamic pricing, and AI to deliver a world-class service at market-beating prices.

By routing jobs to vans already on the road, we reduce wasted miles, cut emissions, and ensure drivers earn fairly. It's logistics, pricing, and marketplace dynamics — driven by software and increasingly by machine intelligence.

And we're moving fast.

We're embedding AI and machine learning across our core platform, not as experiments, but as production systems that drive real business outcomes:

  • Real-time, intelligent pricing that models true job-level costs and responds dynamically to supply, demand, and market conditions

  • Predictive demand and routing models that forecast driver availability and optimise job allocation before a customer even books

  • LLM-powered tooling across our internal and customer-facing products, from intelligent quoting to driver workflow automation

  • A two-sided marketplace where drivers can buy and sell jobs to maximise utilisation — powered by smart matching algorithms

This is genuinely leading-edge work: production AI systems, at scale, on problems that matter.


How our engineering teams deliver

We're product-led and agile. Most teams run Scrum with two-week sprints, but we care far more about outcomes than rituals. Engineers are trusted to challenge assumptions, adapt processes, and ship things that matter.

Senior engineers here are not heads-down implementers. You'll:

  • Work closely with product, data, and commercial stakeholders

  • Influence technical direction and architectural decisions

  • Balance speed with long-term sustainability

  • Regularly ship meaningful improvements to production


Our technology

We're pragmatic and cloud-first, running on AWS, with the flexibility to choose the right tool for the job:

  • Exploring: Go, Rust, React, Node.js

  • Core stack: Python, Vue.js & Nuxt, TypeScript

  • Legacy (retiring where we can): Java, PHP, Angular

You don't need experience in everything, we value strong fundamentals and good engineering judgement over keyword matching.

What you'll be doing

  • Designing, building, and operating production-grade systems that scale

  • Tackling complex technical challenges across backend, infrastructure, data flows, and AI/ML pipelines

  • Writing clean, pragmatic, well-tested code with long-term maintainability in mind

  • Collaborating with technical and non-technical stakeholders to shape solutions

  • Championing testing, observability, and quality improvements

  • Mentoring engineers and raising the technical bar across the team


You'll thrive here if you have

  • Experience in a scale-up or fast-growing product environment

  • Strong backend engineering skills (Go, Java, Python, or similar)

  • A solid understanding of distributed systems, scalability, and performance

  • Experience with CI/CD, modern deployment practices, and cloud infrastructure

  • Comfort working with ambiguity and evolving requirements

  • A bias toward action — shipping value quickly, then iterating

  • A collaborative mindset and the ability to influence beyond your code

  • Bonus: exposure to AI/ML systems, marketplaces, logistics, pricing, or e-commerce

 

Location and Eligibility:

  • Cape Town -based, able to commute to the Central Business District

  • Happy to be onsite at least 3 days per week

  • Fully eligible to work in South Africa

What We Offer:

💰 Competitive Salary - Highly competitive salaries

🌴 Generous Time Off - 20 days +public holidays and Christmas Eve on us

💪 Health & Wellbeing - ZAR1000 pr month towards cover with Momentum/Discovery

📈 Future Ready - 5% you, 5% us

🚲 Easy Travel - Free parking or transport home after 7pm

Daily Perks - In-house barista coffee, free breakfast every day

🎉 Culture & Community - Weekly drinks, fun socials, and rewards that take you places (literally - last winners hit the Alps)

🚀 Career Growth - Join a disruptive technology leader and fast forward your career move

Our company values are:

  • Have fun, get it done

  • Progress over perfection

  • One team thinking big

You can find out more about our culture here:

https://www.anyvan.com/careers

DE&I

We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workplace where every voice is heard, every perspective is valued, and every individual has the opportunity to thrive. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds to be part of our mission and contribute to our vibrant culture.

Skills Required

  • Experience in a scale-up or fast-growing product environment
  • Strong backend engineering skills
  • Solid understanding of distributed systems, scalability, and performance
  • Experience with CI/CD and cloud infrastructure
  • Ability to work with ambiguity and evolving requirements
Am I A Good Fit?
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The Company
London
875 Employees
Year Founded: 2009

What We Do

AnyVan makes moving anything easier, more affordable and greener for everyone. Our sole objective is to use technology and innovation to improve the efficiency and experience of the entire delivery and moving process. With over 2.8 million customers across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Ireland since launch over a decade ago, such work has made us the largest, fastest growing tech company in the logistics industry. We develop and apply leading technologies to manage supply and demand. This allows us to facilitate the most efficient journeys (routes, timings and costs) for transport providers, consumers and many recognised household brands, including TK Maxx, UniDays, Dunelm, Santander and Hunters. Sustainability is a core part of AnyVan’s mission. Using technology to help reduce environmental impact has always been at the top of our agenda. We’re proud to say we’ve achieved carbon-neutral status on all our transport moves, and we won’t stop here. In January 2022, Vitruvian partners invested £125m to acquire a majority stake in the business and provide growth capital to support our expansion, making the largest ever growth capital investment into a UK-based logistics marketplace and reinforcing our position as the UK market leader.

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