About CRU
CRU International is a leading provider of business intelligence and consulting services in the metals, mining, and fertilizer industries. With over 50 years of experience, we offer valuable insights and analysis that help our clients make informed decisions in an ever-changing global market.
About the role
Most engineers build across the stack. The best ones design across it - data model, API contract, interface - as one connected problem, where every decision at one layer shapes what's possible at the next.
CRU's customer-facing products are how commodity analysts, traders and strategists access the market intelligence behind high-stakes decisions in global metals, mining and fertilizer markets. We need an engineer who owns that product end to end: someone who sees the full chain, feels responsible for all of it, and isn't done when the ticket closes. If that's how you work, read on.
What You'll Own
- The full technical vertical of CRU's customer-facing products - from data model through API design to the React interfaces clients rely on daily
- The technical quality bar across the stack: architecture decisions, API contracts, code review standards, and the patterns the whole team builds on
- End-to-end delivery of features: from early ideation with Product, UX, and data stakeholders through to production and iteration - and still accountable if something breaks six months later
- The translation layer between technical complexity and business decisions - stakeholders should leave conversations with you able to act, not just informed
- The engineering culture your team operates at - you raise it, you protect it
Who You Are
- You think about data before you think about UI. The schema shapes everything downstream and you understand that before you write a line of code
- You've built or fixed something nobody asked you to, because you could see it needed to exist or needed changing. You can tell me what prompted it, what you did, and what happened next
- When requirements are unclear, you form a hypothesis and move - clarifying as you go rather than waiting for a complete spec before forming an opinion
- You push back on product or design decisions when you think they're wrong. With evidence, not volume. And you're willing to be wrong back
- You've owned a production incident end to end: from "what broke?" through post-mortem to "here's what changed because of it." You can walk me through one without hedging or blame-shifting
- You have strong technical opinions. Some of them you've revised. You know exactly what changed your mind
- You measure whether what you shipped made a difference. When you can't measure it, you say so - and you tell me what you'd instrument if you could
Technical Bar
- React, TypeScript, JavaScript - production-hardened, not broad. You've built complex, data-driven UIs, made architectural calls under real constraints, and would defend those decisions today.
- Node.js and server-side - you build the APIs and services that connect data to the product. You understand what makes server-side code maintainable at this layer - and what makes it a liability.
- API design (REST / GraphQL) - you've designed APIs that other teams and services depend on. You know what a breaking change looks like before you ship it - not when the incident report arrives.
- Data design and modelling - CRU is a data business. You think carefully about how data is structured, what queries it needs to support, how that decision ages, and what it costs to get wrong. This is a first-class concern in this role, not a backend detail.
- Cloud and infrastructure - Azure preferred. You understand the infrastructure your code runs on - provisioning, IaC, pipelines, environments - and you engage with it directly rather than treating it as someone else's problem.
- Testing, CI/CD, SDLC - You write tests because you've felt what happens when you don't.
- Communication - you can explain a technical tradeoff to a non-technical stakeholder and have them leave the conversation able to make a decision. You've done this under pressure.
- BSc in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience. 5+ years of full-stack development.
What You'll Get
- Technical influence - your architecture decisions shape products used daily by analysts, traders and strategists worldwide. This isn't advisory influence; it's the kind where you made the call and you live with it
- Full-stack ownership - you're not the frontend engineer or the backend engineer. You own the vertical: schema, service, screen
- Meaningful domain - the engineering problems here are real: complex data relationships, demanding expert users, high-stakes outputs where correctness matters
- The team - an engineering team that values technical opinions backed by evidence, changes direction when the argument is strong enough, and debates the right way to build because the stakes are high enough to care
- Room to grow - the engineering challenges here don't simplify as you get better; they get more interesting. The domain is deep enough to reward years of curiosity
- Hybrid working - 2 days/week in the city centre office, a short walk from Sheffield station. The location works whether you're local, commuting, or considering a move
- Flexible benefits package
Pay: From £1.00 per year
Benefits:
- Private medical insurance
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Sheffield (South Yorkshire)
