Software Engineer

About Roome:

Roome is a mobile app that helps university students through three of the most stressful, and least supported moments of moving into private accommodation: finding housemates they actually want to live with, finding somewhere to live, and running a household together once they're in (group chats, bill splitting, booking accommodation, the whole admin of sharing a home). Get those moments right and we become part of every student's experience, every year, until they graduate.

We're a London-based, investment-backed startup founded in 2020. We partner with UK universities including the likes of University of Surrey, University of Bath, Anglia Ruskin and Royal Holloway and with incredible property operators such as Homes for Students, the UK's largest provider of purpose-built student accommodation. Our user base is continuing to grow at pace and the 2026 move-in season (May–September) is the window in which we prove our monetisation model at scale.

Engineering is currently a very small team, and you'd be a very early hire. That means you'll have a real impact from day one, and the decisions you make will still be visible in the codebase in the years to come.

About the role:

You'll primarily work on our Expo/React Native app for iOS and Android. Working closely with the CTO means that your code reviewer, collaborator and the person you push back on about engineering decisions are the same person for now, giving you direct mentorship from the CTO day-to-day.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain features within our Expo/React Native mobile application
• Deliver polished, performant experiences across iOS and Android using Expo's managed and bare workflows
• Write and maintain tests alongside feature development, taking joint ownership of the codebase's quality.
• Review the CTO's code, and have yours reviewed in return.
• Contribute to product decisions; we don't have a wall between engineering and product.
• Contribute to architectural discussions and help uphold engineering standards across the codebase

Requirements:

• Professional experience with React Native and/or Expo, with experience shipping apps on the App Store and Google Play Store
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript and modern React patterns (hooks, context, component composition)
• Solid understanding of mobile-specific concerns: performance, offline handling, device APIs, and platform differences
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines for mobile (EAS Build or equivalent)
• Clear written and verbal communication. You'll be writing PR descriptions, ADRs, and the occasional "I think we should reconsider X" Slack message.

Bonus points for:

• Any backend experience (Laravel/PHP is our current stack, but any MVC framework translates). We'll teach you the rest.
• Experience with analytics tools such as Amplitude or similar event-tracking platforms
• Experience with observability and assosciated tools such as Sentry, Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog etc
• Interest in growing into full-stack engineering responsibilities
• Strong opinions about using AI tools in the development loop — we use Claude Code and Codex heavily, and are interested in various other similar tools, and we're interested in how you'd push that further.

Growth Opportunities

This role is a growth role within a small but fast-growing organisation. While it immediately begins as a primary contributor to our React Native application, we expect and encourage growth into full-stack engineering over time. As you become familiar with our codebase, product and systems, you will have the opportunity to take on work across our Laravel API, with ample growth opportunity and coaching to become a full-stack contributor.

Looking further ahead, we are planning to migrate our backend from Laravel/PHP to TypeScript over the next 12-18 months, bringing the entire stack into a single language. Should this be appealing to you, there’s a genuine role in helping shape that transition.

Working Arrangements

This is a hybrid role based in London. We ask that all team members be present in the office two days per week, with the remaining days worked remotely. Candidates must be based in London or willing to relocate there and have the right to work in the United Kingdom. We cannot sponsor UK work visas for this role.

Tech Stack

React Native · Expo · TypeScript · Laravel 12 · PHP 8.3 · MySQL · AWS

What we offer:

• Salary of £50,000 - £70,000 per annum
• 32 days paid holiday per year, inclusive of the 8 UK bank holidays. Holiday year runs January to December.
• Hybrid working — flexible working policy with a minimum of 2 days per week in our London office (Harlequin Building, 65 Southwark Street, SE1 0HR); remaining days worked remotely.
• Pension — NEST auto-enrolment with employer matching up to 5%.
• Discretionary company bonus at year end.
• Eligibility for share options after successful completion of probation.
• Contractual sick pay — up to 10 paid sick days in a rolling year (on top of Statutory Sick Pay), following successful completion of probation.
• Company equipment provided (laptop, office pass, working-from-home equipment).