Senior Software Engineer
Contract details
Type: Permanent, Full-Time
Hours: 40hrs per week.
Salary range: £58,000 - £78,000 (dependent on experience)
Holiday: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays, increasing by 1 day per year of service up to a maximum of 30 days.
Location: Remote, hybrid or office based in Camden, NW1 8NJ.
Interviews: Interviews would ideally take place in person at our office in Camden, NW1 8NJ, but remote interviews can be arranged if necessary.
Overview
Clockwork Dog is looking for software engineers to join the team full time to accelerate the development of our COGS platform. Our mission is to advance the practice of delivering live interactive experiences by offering innovative, reliable and accessible tools for producers, creatives and technicians.
COGS is a software/hardware automation platform for building immersive theatre, escape rooms and marketing experiences. It is used internally by our team to create interactive solutions for live events, and externally by customers who learn to build their own experiences using our software, hardware and tutorials. Our customers trust COGS for its reliability, ease of use, and interoperability with other systems. COGS is used extensively in productions such as Taskmaster Live (Avalon), Monopoly Lifesized (The Path Entertainment Group), Bridge Command (Parabolic Theatre), Wishmas (Secret Cinema), and in hundreds of escape rooms across the world.
The role
In your role as a Senior Software Engineer you will be building on a fast-moving, well-tested system to give it more superpowers and bring more creative possibilities to our users. You will be expected to work across a number of systems, including our main desktop application, a user-facing backend, Raspberry Pi firmware and more.
You will also be providing technical leadership and helping to decide on the future architecture and direction of our system. We’re looking for highly motivated developers with a passion for engineering and technology.
You will work closely with the CTO, Head of Software, and our small, ambitious team. Your place of work is flexible however we expect to bring the team together at least once a month at our office in Camden, London, and may occasionally be asked to travel to work with clients.
Day to day
You can expect to be:
Maintaining, improving and developing features for our core software and hardware products
Writing robust and well tested code
Planning and designing the specification for new features.
Researching new technologies and planning the future of our software architecture
Diving deep into performance optimisations.
There may also be line management opportunities depending on future growth of the team.
Projects
Here are some examples of recent projects we’ve completed:
Develop a system for remotely controlling COGS over the internet.
Incorporate support for wireless peripherals such as smart bulbs using the Zigbee protocol.
Self-updating mechanism for a Raspberry Pi.
Improve payment checkout user experience.
Here are some examples of upcoming projects we have planned across a number of different areas.. We want our team members to advocate for the product direction and we will be actively seeking your opinions and judgement for which areas to prioritise in future.
Develop a performant native audio/video playback system for our “Media Master” hardware.
Extend the API and capabilities of the COGS plugins system.
Allow COGS to use realtime streaming sensor data.
Technology
You can expect to be working with:
Electron apps using Typescript, React, Redux, Firebase
Firebase/Stripe backend
Audio/video playback
Realtime systems
Automated testing and deployments
Raspberry Pi and other SoC computers
Hardware control protocols such as DMX, OSC & MQTT
Third-party hardware control
Linux
Protocol and API design
Key skills and experience
A good grasp of common web technologies such as Javascript/Typescript, React, Redux, Firebase
Delivering software within a team
Ability to work across a number of different systems using different technologies
Using test frameworks
Using CI systems such as GitHub actions
Desirable interests and experience
Systems programming languages e.g. Rust
Live shows, live gaming, immersive theatre or escape rooms
Lighting/audio/video control software
UI and UX design
Arduino, Raspberry Pi or other single-board computers
Home automation
Control protocols such as DMX, OSC and MQTT
Basic electronics
What we offer
We will provide you with a company laptop and the tools to help you fulfil your role. You can also look forward to:
Monthly socials with trips to immersive shows (ideas welcome!)
An annual team retreat
Bi-monthly hack days
Our company values
Excellence - We value the high quality of our work, and believe that by constantly holding ourselves to high standards we ensure our continued success and are able to deliver on our core company vision and mission.
Ingenuity - We believe that the key to our success is by innovating in new ingenious ways, whether that’s in our internal processes, technology or the ways we communicate with our clients or users.
Playfulness - The end product for our clients is often to create worlds, games and environments for play so we see our work as an extension of that. We see problem solving as an exploration rather than a road block. This ties into an ability to find humour and fun within our work and with how we deal with each other and our clients. Often we discover new ideas and techniques through playing around.
Integrity - We strive to be honest and consistent in our work, as well as with each other and our clients. This ties into having firm moral beliefs such as sustainability, working with charities and a balance between work and play.
To apply, please send a cover letter and a copy of your CV to hello@clockwork.dog
If you would like an informal conversation about the role, or working at Clockwork Dog, please contact Chetan Padia, Head of Software Engineering, on chet@clockwork.dog