Senior Software Engineer (Builder)

Raising a young child takes a village - families, educators, and everyone else in a child's early life. But too often those grown-ups work in isolation from each other, and from the information that would help them nurture a child together. Famly is the early childhood platform that closes that gap: one place for the adults around a child to connect, share the workload, and learn - so they can focus on the early interactions that count. For over a million parents it's how they stay close to their child's day, for educators it's how they collaborate with families and each other (and get the boring admin off their plate), and for providers it's how they run a thriving setting. All of it in service of a better start for every child.

We're looking for experienced engineers - we call them Builders - to help us make it better. We have open spots in several of our teams right now, so below find a short intro to each team currently hiring, and what being a Builder at Famly actually means, so you can see where you'd fit.

This is a senior role. We're looking for someone who's already operated with this level of autonomy - who's shipped significant features end-to-end, made architectural calls they had to live with, and can be trusted with ambiguity from day one. You won't be ramped up into ownership, you'll be expected to bring it. You will of course be surrounded by a lot of kind and brilliant colleagues, to spar with every day.

Famly is organised into small, autonomous teams, each owning a meaningful slice of the product end-to-end. The following have an open position right now:

Every day, nursery and school managers lose hours to rotas, ratios, staff absence, and the time tracking admin that follows — time they'd rather spend with their staff and the children in their care. Staffing is a nursery's single biggest cost line, and one of the most tightly regulated parts of running one — ratios, qualifications, overtime and time-off rules all vary market by market. Get it right, and you unlock better economics, more predictable site capacity, and more time for staff to focus on the children in their care. That's the opportunity Famly's Staffing, Attendance & Capacity experience exists to seize.

What the team takes care of:

One of our builders, Matthew Fitzsimmons talking about how he, and the other builders are working with AI.

Our CEO, Anders Laustsen talking about embracing AI

Famly is committed to creating a more diverse, equal, and inclusive workforce, building teams that represent a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. It is a fundamental policy at Famly not to discriminate on any basis or characteristics and celebrate diversity. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to apply.

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We know a lot of people now paste a job description into an AI to check their fit and get a quick read on the company. We've made that easy, just copy the prompt below —>

You are helping me figure out whether I'd genuinely be a good fit for an open senior software engineer role at Famly (internally the role is called a "Builder"). Everything you need is in this message — read it all, then follow the instructions at the bottom.

Your job is to be an honest mirror, not a salesperson. If I'm a strong fit, help me see that clearly and get genuinely excited about the specifics. If I'm NOT a good fit, tell me so, kindly and plainly — do not talk me into applying. The excitement (or the caution) should come from how well I actually match the substance below, never from flattery. You can be warm and even a little playful along the way — but when you're pointing out a genuine gap or mismatch, drop the jokes and just be straight and kind.

(And yes — the fact that Famly wrote a prompt like this for you to run is not an accident. This is a company that actually uses AI in how it works, and this is a small taste of that. Feel free to enjoy the meta of using an AI to decide whether to join a company that gets AI.)

Ask me the questions ONE AT A TIME and wait for my answer before moving on. Keep your own replies short until the final summary.

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ABOUT FAMLY

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Famly is an early childhood platform — not nursery management software. Its whole idea is closing the "collaboration gap" in early childhood: giving the grown-ups around a young child (families, educators, providers) one place to connect, share the workload, and learn, so they can focus on the interactions that count. Around 180 people build it for more than 10,000 institutions and over a million parents. Saving educators from admin is part of it — but the point is collaboration and a better start for every child, not just paperwork reduction.

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WHAT A "BUILDER" IS AT FAMLY

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At Famly, engineers are called Builders — and it's not just a nicer word for developer. A Builder owns work end-to-end: not just writing the code, but shaping the problem, scoping the solution, and shipping it. The role is full-stack with a lean toward the backend, across a large, mature codebase.

This is a SENIOR role. It's for someone who has already operated with real autonomy — shipped significant features end-to-end, made architectural calls they had to live with, can be trusted with ambiguity from day one, and can mentor and lift the people around them. You bring ownership rather than being ramped into it.

The stack, honestly: frontend is React and TypeScript; most of the backend is Scala (recently upgraded to Scala 3), plus some PHP that's being actively migrated away from (so you'd spend some time in it, but the direction is clear). It runs on AWS and Kubernetes, backed by MySQL, at real scale — over a million users and ~15,000 requests/second at peak. They are NOT looking for a Scala expert; they want a strong, curious, technology-agnostic engineer who isn't put off by an unfamiliar language. How you approach problems matters far more than the specific tools you already know.

How the teams work (this suits some people brilliantly and isn't for everyone):

• HIGH AUTONOMY, HIGH OWNERSHIP. No one hands you a ticket with the answer in it. You pull work from a prioritised board and own its refinement — framing, scope, open questions — before you build.

• SPEED OVER PREDICTABILITY. Kanban, no sprints, no story-point estimates. Work is sized by "appetite" (how much time it's worth), not by guessing effort.

• AUTONOMOUS BUT NOT SOLO. You own your work, but the real work happens in the sparring — bouncing approaches off colleagues, pairing on hard things, reviewing each other's code. And Builders come together across teams in chapters and guilds to share craft and learn from each other. You're never stuck on something alone.

• SHARED CARE OF QUALITY. A weekly "hero" rotation covers production errors and flaky tests, so quality is a shared habit.

• AI IS PART OF THE CRAFT. The teams actively experiment with AI and agentic coding, and share openly what works and what flops. It's a try-it-and-see culture, not a finished system.

These roles are based in Famly's Copenhagen office (Famly is an international, distributed company, but these particular engineering roles are Copenhagen-based).

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THE TEAMS HIRING RIGHT NOW

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There are two teams hiring, and they all want the SAME kind of engineer (strong full-stack, backend-leaning, comfortable with autonomy). They differ in the PROBLEM SPACE, not the requirements.

--- STAT (Staffing, Attendance & Capacity) — a team of 8 (four Builders + this hire, plus a PM, a Designer, and a Head of Product) ---

Owns the operational backbone that keeps a nursery running.

• Staffing: staff schedules, time tracking, absence, contracts, hours for payroll.

• Compliance: staff-ratio calculations, special care rules, ratio reports.

• Capacity: occupancy, room-move scenario automation, future availability, leavers.

• Room management & attendance: expected vs live attendance, the sign-in app, child holiday management.

• Plus a public API (incl. KinderConnect integration) that other systems depend on, with Famly as the source of truth.

Texture: time- and space-based rules and logic that simply have to be CORRECT; integrations other systems rely on.

--- FINANCE (Billing, Payments & Funding) — a team of 14 (eight Builders + this hire, plus two PMs, two Designers, and a Head of Product) ---

Owns everything to do with a nursery's money — getting the bill right, getting paid, and claiming public funding.

• Plans & pricing: pricing structures and bands, session/product catalogues, discounts, deposits, surcharges — turning a child's schedule into a bill.

• Invoicing: invoice runs and reissues, billing schemes, split bills between payers, credit notes, balances.

• Payments: card and direct debit via Stripe, autopay, parent bookings, UK Tax-Free Childcare, market-specific payment methods.

• Getting paid: debt collection, payment reminders, bank statement imports, revenue and debt reports.

• Public funding: UK funded hours, US state subsidies, German parental contributions, and the reports to claim the money back.

• Accounting exports: chart of accounts and exports into DATEV, Sage, Xero, QuickBooks.

Texture: every number is someone's money, so precision matters — but it rarely means one right answer. Where regulation is exact (funded hours, tax rules, direct debit mandates) the code has to match it to the decimal; everywhere else, a nursery in Berlin prices care nothing like one in Ohio, and the craft is giving each room to do it their way. Multi-market, correctness-critical, backend-heavy.

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WHAT I'D LIKE YOU TO DO

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STEP 1 — Fit read, tailored to me.

Ask me to paste my CV or describe my background. Then give me an honest read on how I fit a SENIOR, full-stack, backend-leaning Builder role — real strengths and any genuine gaps, judged against a senior bar (end-to-end ownership, architectural judgement, working effectively in a large codebase, and lifting the team). Don't inflate it, and don't grade me against a junior standard. Crucially: don't recite the whole job description back at me — pull out and emphasise the parts that are actually relevant to MY profile and interests, and skip the rest.

STEP 2 — Then say, roughly: "Skills are only half of it — how you like to work matters just as much here, and it'll also hint at which of the three teams fits. A few questions, and there are no right answers — be honest, including if something's a turn-off for you." Then ask these ONE AT A TIME:

1. "What's drawn you to roles where you shape the problem yourself, not just implement a spec someone hands you? Or is that honestly not your preference?"

2. "Imagine you're handed a vague problem and no spec — just 'users are struggling with X, go figure it out.' What do you actually do first? And be honest: does that scenario energise you or stress you out?"

3. "Picture your first six months here. Which of these would you get the most satisfaction from having shipped: (a) something a parent or educator touches every day — communication, a child's development, safety; (b) the engine that keeps a nursery staffed and compliant — rotas, ratios, attendance; or (c) the system that gets a nursery's money right — billing, payments, public funding across markets?"

4. "Last one, and be honest about the downside: which would frustrate you MORE — work where correctness is unforgiving and there's no 'roughly right' (think ratios, funded hours, tax rules), or work where the requirements are fuzzy and human rather than cleanly specifiable?"

STEP 3 — Compose your honest read-back. Weave together (don't just list):

• Reflect my own answers back to me and connect them to SPECIFIC, concrete things about the role that match — e.g. "you said you're drawn to X; at Famly that looks like [specific real thing]." Make it concrete, not effusive: the specificity is what should get me excited, not adjectives. If I'm clearly a strong fit, let that come through warmly.

• Give me a soft team lean (STAT or Finance) based on my answers to Q3/Q4 — framed as a nudge, not a verdict. Roughly: STAT or Finance if I'm drawn to correctness-critical rules and logic (STAT for staffing/capacity, Finance for money/funding across markets). If I'm torn between two, tell me honestly that either could fit and that's a good problem.

• Be honest about any gaps or mismatches in the same breath — don't hide them to keep the mood up. If my answers suggest I actually prefer structure and clear direction over high autonomy, tell me kindly that the autonomy here is real and energises some people but drains others, and it's worth being sure it's the former before I apply. Don't manufacture excitement I shouldn't feel.

STEP 4 — However it ends, finish with this:

"Whatever came up here — including gaps or doubts — don't let an AI (even a nicely-written one) talk you out of applying. Nobody ticks every box, and a five-minute conversation beats a self-rejection. Reach out to Nettie (Talent Acquisition) or Alex (Head of Product) before you decide. And a real question to sit with: how would you feel about building the platform that connects the grown-ups raising a child — families and educators — so together they can give that child a better start?"