Senior Software Engineer

Senior Software Engineer (Full-Stack, Frontend, React, Next.js)

Location: Bristol

Day Rate: TBC

Work Model: Hybrid – Bristol office Monday to Wednesday (3 days onsite)

About the Role:

RC Fornax is a veteran-owned engineering consultancy building a next-generation AI-powered, agentic platform that will transform engineering outsourcing, recruitment, and defence procurement.

We’re looking for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer with a strong frontend and UX bias, proven Next.js + React experience, and solid backend capability. This is a hands-on role at the heart of a new product – shaping architecture, building core workflows, and delivering end-to-end functionality.

You’ll be someone who builds polished, intuitive interfaces, understands how data flows through a system, and can contribute meaningfully to the backend logic that powers intelligent behaviour.

What you’ll do:

• Build high-quality, intuitive frontend experiences using Next.js + React for an AI-enabled, decision-support platform
• Design and implement backend services, APIs, and data models (Node.js or Python preferred)
• Work end-to-end: architecture → implementation → testing → iteration
• Contribute to AI-enabled and agentic workflows (e.g. orchestration, automation, decision support)
• Integrate with cloud services, SaaS platforms, and external systems
• Shape architectural decisions and engineering standards
• Apply secure, reliable, and ethical engineering practices suitable for regulated environments

What we’re looking for:

Core Requirements

A senior full-stack engineer (2–3+ years commercial experience) with:

• Strong frontend engineering skills and UX intuition
• Deep understanding of React + Next.js, including state management and client-side data flows
• Proven backend capability: building APIs, modelling data, and managing application state (Node.js or Python preferred)
• Experience deploying and operating full-stack applications on AWS, Azure, or GCP
• Ability to reason about system architecture, trade-offs, maintainability, and performance
• A track record of building and shipping real systems, not just isolated or narrow ticket work

Nice to Have

• Experience handling reactive or real-time client-side data (e.g. WebSockets, streaming, signals)
• Integrating SaaS platforms and third-party APIs
• Messaging or queueing experience (e.g. RabbitMQ, Apache Kafka)
• Familiarity with modern AI-assisted development tools (e.g. Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code)
• Interest in agentic systems, reasoning engines, or workflow automation (not required, but valuable)

What We Offer:

• A rare opportunity to build an intelligent, agentic AI platform with real-world impact
• Influence product direction from the earliest stages
• Work that contributes directly to national security, engineering quality, and procurement transparency
• Hybrid working and a culture that values autonomy, ownership, and pragmatic engineering
• Collaboration with leaders in defence, engineering, and applied AI

Additional Information:

• Eligibility for UK Security Clearance (SC) is required, this typically means at least 5 years of UK residency, passing background, employment, criminal record, and financial checks, and being able to demonstrate reliability and trustworthiness for work involving sensitive government information.