Python Engineer
Milan, IT
Octopus Energy Italia 🇮🇹 – Software Engineering /
Full-time /
Hybrid
Octopus Energy Italia is targeting 1 million Italian energy accounts by 2025 (5% of the market). The rapid expansion will be driven by an initial investment of €60 million from Octopus Energy, coming soon after the $600 million injection from Al Gore-backed Generation Investment Management that Octopus Energy Group received in October 2021 and the $300 million investment made by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) made in December 2021. These two investments value the company approximately US$5 billion, rivalling that of many long-established energy giants.
Our team
All technology is written and maintained by a multi-discipline engineering team of around 100 people. This includes server-side, client-side and mobile engineers working closely with UX experts, copywriters and designers.
We follow a Kanban-like approach, using Google docs and Asana to specify and manage work; Github, CircleCI and Terraform Enterprise as part of an immutable-infrastructure, continuous delivery pipeline; and Loggly, Sentry and Cloudwatch to measure performance and monitor production.
Octopus is a great place to learn, work with some talented engineers and level-up your skills.
Our technology
On the server-side, we mainly use Python. Most of our websites are powered by Django, Django-REST-framework and GraphQL (Graphene).
We use AWS heavily, employing most of the "Hashistack" (eg Packer, Consul, Terraform) as part of a continuous deployment pipeline. See, for example, Django, ELB health checks and continuous delivery.
Client-side, we use React, Redux and SASS; our mobile apps are built using native code or React Native.
What you'll do...
- We have lots of difficult design challenges to solve. The UK energy market is complicated, outdated and process-heavy - there's an awful lot of domain modelling that we need to get right. Strong attention to detail is essential.
- We have difficult technical problems to solve. With the advent of smart meters, we'll soon be processing millions of meter readings a day. We need the right technology in place to handle this smoothly as well as feeding data into a machine learning pipeline that models and predicts consumption.
- There's a great opportunity for disruption in the Italian energy market. The big suppliers still dominate, but are not exactly popular. The energy landscape is changing as we move to more dis-aggregated forms of generation, with less predictability, more dynamism and smarter technology.
- You'll be working for a company that’s fighting climate change. As a supplier, we're helping people to use greener technology and renewable energy, all helping move Italy towards a lower carbon future.
It would be helpful to have experience in the following...
- Python
- Django (or equiv. web framework)
- Domain modelling
- HTTP and REST APIs
- Writing robust and fault-tolerant software
- Celery and async processing
- Postgres
- Plus experience in the following would be a bonus:AWS
- Terraform, Packer, Consul
- React and Redux
- High level language skills in English and Italian
About you...
- We're looking for someone with a general interest in technology and problem-solving; someone diligent and thoughtful.
- Passionate about working in energy and contributing to the energy transition
- High level language skills in English and Italian
- Curious and self driven
- Learns fast and is enthusiastic about learning new technologies
- Previous experience in the energy industry is not a requirement (we can teach you that) but if you do have it, it could be considered a plus. In this case, we would like to know if you had any previous experience with the following platforms:
- SII - Sistema informativo integrato
- Energy and/or gas distributor’s portals
What you'll love about us....
- Octopus Energy is a unique culture - An organisation where people learn, decide, and build quicker. Where people work with autonomy, alongside a wide range of amazing co-owners, on projects that break new ground. We want your hard work to be rewarded with perks you actually care about!
- Flexible working environment - genuine work life balance here, we treat you as a human, and do our best to make work and life merge smoothly together
- Relaxation - we don’t count your holidays here, we work hard, and so we know you need to play hard as well (within reason of course)
- Equity Options Scheme - you own your own part of the business, share options in the whole Octopus Energy Group so we all work together towards success
- Office culture - have a certain tech requirement? We’ll do our best to get it. Weekly on a Friday we all get together (this happens virtually too) for company updates and drinks - we call it Family Dinner
- Your development is important - we support and help with development including internal and external courses, learning, study support etc, all bespoke to you
Above all, we’re looking for someone who thrives on providing alternative opinions, challenging those around them and being challenged. We would prefer someone who can work in our Italian (Milan or Ascoli) office but will consider remote candidates.
