• You write Kotlin. This is the backbone of everything we build - Spring for our runtimes, pure Kotlin for the rest. If you haven’t used it before, but have strong experience in modern Java (17+), and are a quick learner, you’ll be fine.

• You understand reactive streams. Flux, Mono, coroutines, backpressure — you’ve worked with at least one reactive paradigm and you understand why it matters for streaming data.

• You think in types and schemas. You’ve worked with at least one schema language — OpenAPI, Avro, Protobuf, whatever. More importantly, you understand why schemas matter: contracts, validation, interop, trust.

• You’re aware of event-driven architecture. You understand async messaging patterns, pub/sub, and why systems get built this way. Experience with Kafka or RabbitMQ is a plus, but understanding the concepts matters more than any specific broker.

• You write tests early. We’re not TDD purists, but we have strong test coverage and we use it to move fast with confidence. You should be the kind of engineer who feels nervous shipping without tests, not the kind who bolts them on at the end.

• You care about clean code. Design patterns, sensible abstractions, code that your future self won’t hate. Not architecture astronautics — pragmatic, readable code that holds up under change.

• You’re curious, and enjoy learning. Nobody here is an expert in everything - we value curiosity, adaptability, and strong engineering fundamentals.

• You can work across the stack. Our frontend is Angular, but if you’ve built things in React, Vue, or anything modern, you’ll pick it up. We care more about your willingness to jump in than your specific framework experience.

• You work with AI, not around it. You actively use AI assisted coding tools to move faster. You’re curious about what LLMs can and can’t do, and you’re not waiting to be told to try them.

• You communicate well in English. We’re a distributed team. Written communication is how most of our collaboration happens — Slack, PRs, docs. Fluent English is essential.

• You have at least 5 years of professional experience. You’ve shipped production systems, learned from real-world complexity, and know how to balance thoughtful engineering with pragmatic delivery.

How you'll need to work

• Autonomously. We’re a small team. You’ll have context, you’ll have support, but you won’t have someone assigning you tickets every morning. You need to be able to pick up a problem, figure out what needs doing, and do it.

• Collaboratively. Things will break. Priorities will shift. Customers will find creative ways to stress the product. We need someone who stays constructive when things go wrong — not someone who assigns blame or goes quiet.

• With customer empathy. Everyone at Orbital talks to customers. You’ll hear directly from the people using what you build, and you’ll care about making their experience better. We care deeply about delivering amazing developer and user experiences.

• Out loud. We expect everyone to share what they’re working on — internally and externally. You don’t need to be a conference keynote speaker, but you should be comfortable writing about interesting problems you’ve solved and excited about showing your work.

• At startup pace. We’re a small team with big ambitions. Some days are scrappy. If that energizes you, great. If you need everything to be well-defined before you start, this probably isn’t the right fit.

Nice to have

• Kafka, RabbitMQ, or event streaming platform experience
• Angular / TypeScript specifically
• Deep Kotlin/JVM ecosystem knowledge
• Experience with compiler design, language tooling, or query engines
• Experience with Spring AI or LLM-based agent systems
• Experience in financial services or enterprise integration
• A blog, conference talks, or open-source contributions — anything that shows you like sharing what you learn

What we offer

• Competitive salary and early-stage equity
• Remote-first (we work in UK timezones). Ability to meet up in London is nice, but not essential.
• Budget for conferences, community events, and travel
• Hardware and tooling budget

How to apply

Send us a note at careers@orbitalhq.com. Tell us what you’ve shipped, point us at something you’ve written or recorded, and let us know why this role caught your eye.