When you think of Marks & Spencer, you might picture the food, fashion or familiar stores that have been part of the UK high street for decades. What you might not realise is that behind the shelves, there’s a fast-growing team of engineers building technology that millions of people use every single day.
For Ben Phillips, Engineering Chapter Lead at M&S, that scale is exactly what makes the job so exciting. The sense of connection between technology, people, and purpose runs through everything his team does.
Ben’s path into M&S wasn’t typical. After co-founding two startups, Playfire and Thread, he joined M&S to help evolve the way engineering worked inside one of the UK’s most loved brands. He brought with him the mindset of a founder: move fast, stay curious, and always build for real people.
"I realised quite quickly that building software for a company of 60,000 people is completely different from building for a company of 100,” he said. “The impact is huge. You have to think not just about the customer, but the colleague, the store, the warehouse, the entire ecosystem."
At M&S, that difference in scale means every technical decision can ripple across the business, touching everything from supply chains to the customer experience. It’s a scale that challenges engineers to think holistically and build with empathy.
That people-first mindset is one reason M&S is becoming known not just as a retail brand, but as a place where engineers can see the real-world impact of their code.
Ask Ben what surprised him most about M&S, and his answer isn’t about the technology. It’s about the culture.
"One of the things that stood out was how supportive people are. You can ask for help and someone will immediately point you in the right direction," he said.
It’s a small thing that says a lot. Engineering at M&S is less about silos and more about shared ownership, teams working together across data, digital and operations to solve problems that affect millions of customers.
That culture of collaboration doesn’t just make the work smoother. It makes it smarter. It gives engineers visibility across the business and the freedom to influence how things are done.
A big part of Ben’s role now is helping engineers shape their own careers. That means creating opportunities to learn, experiment and move between teams.
"You could be working on robotics in a warehouse, then move to the app, or to internal tools that help colleagues," Ben explained. "It’s about continual learning and growth. It keeps things interesting and fun."
More importantly, it builds a stronger engineering organisation. Ben notes that it forces teams to move away from relying on knowledge trapped in people's heads. Instead, it promotes creating excellent documentation and smooth onboarding processes, which benefits everyone.
Internal mobility is more than a perk, it’s part of M&S’s engineering DNA. It ensures that ideas move as freely as people do. It’s also one reason M&S is attracting engineers who want to do more than just write code. They want to grow with the business.
If this sounds like the kind of environment you’d thrive in, you can explore open roles at M&S Digital & Technology here.
When it comes to innovation, M&S is quietly doing work that rivals some of the most advanced tech companies out there. From AI-driven automation in fulfilment centres to virtual try-on experiences, engineers are shaping how millions of people shop every day.
M&S also partners with GitHub and Microsoft to give engineers early access to the latest tools, including GitHub Copilot. But Ben’s philosophy isn’t to prescribe how AI should be used, it’s to empower people to explore.
This happens through internal "show and tell" sessions where engineers demonstrate new use cases they've discovered, fostering a culture of shared learning and grassroots innovation.
"Our strategy is agility," he said. "What’s good today might change tomorrow. We want engineers to be curious, to test, to share what they learn, and to shape how we use these tools."
That openness has created a culture where experimentation isn’t just allowed, it’s encouraged.
After a year of rapid change, Ben says the mood across M&S Digital & Technology is optimistic.
"There’s a real energy here. People want to build, to improve, to make things better than before," he said. "What excites me most is creating an environment where people can do their best work and be happy doing it."
That focus on people, and the chance to build technology that millions use every day, is what makes M&S a genuinely special place to be an engineer.
If you’re curious about what it’s like to build at this scale, or how a company with over a century of history is reinventing how tech and retail come together, you can catch Ben’s full conversation with hackajob CEO Mark Chaffey on the DevLab Podcast.