In a fast-paced global environment procurement can provide a real strategic challenge. At Keelvar we apply optimization and game theory to help enterprises source billions in spend. Keelvar was founded in Europe's largest AI research lab by a team of computer scientists. Powered by unique artificial intelligence, designed by our category experts, our mission is to help procurement teams globally to scale sourcing excellence. Keelvar is an award-winning, category leading, global sourcing optimization and autonomous sourcing vendor, optimising over $200bn+ in spend annually.
We have an exciting opportunity to join our Product Engineering team as a Senior Software Engineer. This role is based in Cork, Ireland (on-site/hybrid).
You will join a small, autonomous AI-native pod — a cross-functional team that uses AI tooling as part of how it designs, builds, and ships — owning product delivery from problem discovery to measurable outcomes. You will report to one of our Engineering Managers, who will support your development and keep the pod running smoothly.
A typical week mixes hands-on engineering with collaboration inside your pod. You might:
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Ship a slice of a product feature to production — shaping it with your Product Manager, engineers in your pod, and GTM. Getting it in front of users in days, not sprints.
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Use AI coding agents (Claude Code, Copilot) as part of your daily workflow — generating, refactoring, and reviewing code with a critical eye. Our framing is "AI-assisted creation, human-led verification": you own the output, regardless of how it was produced.
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Push to production multiple times a day. Change-to-prod is ~20 minutes within a sophisticated automated CI/CD pipeline.
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Own incidents end-to-end when a service misbehaves — from the page, through investigation, to the post-incident learning.
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Prototype an idea, knowing when something is good enough as an experiment and when it needs to graduate to production-grade.
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Review pull requests thoroughly, and have your own work reviewed by peers who care about long-term maintainability as much as they care about shipping fast.
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Outcome-oriented. You measure your work by the impact it has on users and the business — not by tickets closed or volume of code shipped. You engage with the problem before reaching for a solution, and you stay close to how customers actually use what you build.
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Autonomy and shared ownership across the pod. Pods run their own delivery without heavy ceremony or constant management presence. You shape product decisions alongside the pod rather than waiting to be handed a spec, and you progress work without needing detailed instructions. Pods own outcomes end-to-end — you will sometimes work in the frontend, sometimes write Python services, sometimes pair on an agent.
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AI as a force multiplier for the craft. You use Claude Code, Copilot, or similar tools regularly, directing them to iterate rather than accepting first output. Taste, judgement, and knowing what good looks like matter more in an AI-augmented workflow, not less — deep code knowledge makes you a better director of these tools.
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Production-grade engineering experience. Solid proficiency in software development with a track record of owning production systems through their full lifecycle, ideally in a SaaS context. You work in Python, design distributed services using both RESTful and event-driven APIs, and are comfortable with DevOps practices, cloud environments (ideally AWS), CI/CD, and observability.
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A sense for prototype versus production. You can rapidly stand up a prototype to test an idea, and you know when an idea is ready to graduate to production-grade engineering — and what it takes to get it there.
Here at Keelvar, we are proud to offer flexible working and good benefits, including:
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Competitive salary at a growing organisation.
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Pension 7.5%
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Health Insurance
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25 days PTO, increasing to 26 after 3 years, and increasing to 27 after 5 years. Plus a day off for your birthday.
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Flexible working hours with a positive approach to work - life balance.
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An inclusive, collaborative, innovative culture.
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Generous leave offerings including 2 CSR days.
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Modern toolkit and AI tooling provided so you can do your best work.
If you really like the sound of the role but don't match every listed criteria exactly, we still want to hear from you. You could be the exact fit for this or any of our other roles.
We are a diverse group and we intend to continue to attract and retain diverse talent in our organisation. We're committed to an inclusive and diverse Keelvar. We do not discriminate based on gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, civil or family status, age, disability, or race.
