Software Engineer
Build the products end to end, across the stack, close enough to the problem to argue about it.
About the role
This is a generalist engineering role in a team small enough that there is no ticket queue between you and the decision. You will be handed problems rather than specifications, and you will be part of working out what the answer should be.
We hire for trajectory as much as track record. If you are early in your career but have built things that were harder than they needed to be, that counts here.
Responsibilities
- Ship features across frontend, backend and the seams in between.
- Work directly with design and data science rather than through a handover.
- Write the tests, own the deployment, and fix what breaks.
- Take a rough problem to a working thing without waiting for someone to specify it.
- Review other people's code carefully, and take review on your own without flinching.
- Keep an eye on what you are building for: correctness and traceability matter more here than raw speed.
Requirements
If you meet most of these and the rest looks learnable, apply. We would rather read your application than have you rule yourself out.
- Two or more years writing production code, or equivalent depth demonstrated in work we can look at.
- Strong fundamentals and at least one language you know properly rather than passably.
- Working knowledge of a modern web stack and a cloud provider.
- Comfort with version control, testing and CI as normal parts of the job rather than chores.
- You care what the code looks like in six months.
- Clear written communication, particularly when something has gone wrong.
Nice to have
- TypeScript, React or a modern meta-framework in your working vocabulary.
- Exposure to data pipelines, queues or event-driven systems.
- Something you built and shipped outside of work or study.
- Interest in compliance, financial crime or the practical side of applied AI.
How you would work here
01
Craft is the point
Work is judged on whether it holds up, not on how it was presented in a status meeting. If you do careful work it will be visible here in a way it never is at scale.
02
Real ownership
You own a product surface rather than a slice of a backlog. That means the decisions are yours to make, and the consequences are yours to sit with.
03
New technology, clear guardrails
There is genuine freedom to try things, set inside limits drawn by people who have taken systems into production before. Experiment, but know where the edges are.
04
Hybrid in Amman
Three days in the office and two from home. The office days are for the work that goes better with everyone in a room, which is most of the hard parts.
How we hire
Five steps, about two weeks end to end. The work assessment is a real day of work and it is paid.
CV review
We read it properly. You hear back either way.
Call with Essa
Forty-five minutes with the founder. Your work, our work, and whether the fit is real.
Paid work assessment
One day on a realistic problem, paid at a fair rate. The closest either of us gets to trying the job.
Team session
Time with the people you would work beside, so the decision runs in both directions.
Offer
Made quickly once we are sure. About two weeks from first contact to here.
About Digital Composition Lab
DCL is a founder-led R&D software product development lab. We take on problems where software has to be trusted rather than merely shipped, and we build the products ourselves: Agentic Data Compliance for UK GDPR alignment, and Korva for financial crime prevention.
The lab is small and deliberately full-stack in the widest sense: research, product, design and engineering in one team. More about who we are.