Software Engineer

Role purpose

Implement, test and support well-defined slices of X3 modernisation while developing strong X3 domain knowledge and safe engineering habits.

X3 context

Sage X3 is the SaaS-readiness programme for X3: a progressive transformation from tightly coupled legacy runtime patterns towards portable, cloud-operable and upgradeable capabilities. The programme protects customer behaviour, partner IP and rollback while it modernises journeys, APIs, components, data paths, business logic, delivery automation and migration economics.

The role contributes to outcome-owned squads. India is a scalable engineering and product delivery centre, connected to Europe and North America through deliberate overlap, shared standards, recorded decisions and continuous support of production outcomes.

Required technical and domain skills

• Strong software engineering experience in modern programming languages such as Rust, TypeScript/JavaScript, Go, Python, Java, or C#, with a proven ability to build, test, deploy, and operate production-grade services.

• Solid foundation in software design, object-oriented and distributed systems principles, API-first development, automated testing, debugging, source control, CI/CD, and Agile delivery practices.

• Required understanding of distributed systems, including service-to-service communication, event-driven architectures, scalability, resiliency patterns, fault tolerance, asynchronous processing, observability, and data consistency trade-offs.

• Experience designing and consuming REST, GraphQL, and event-based integrations, with strong understanding of API contracts, versioning, backward compatibility, and secure service interactions.

• Experience working with relational databases and document databases, including data modeling, performance optimization, reliability, migration, and operational considerations.

• Familiarity with cloud-native engineering practices, including containers, orchestration platforms, infrastructure automation, observability, secure software supply chains, and operational readiness.

• Hands-on experience with containerisation and Kubernetes.

• Practical experience with modern web application development using React and TypeScript or equivalent modern dynamic UX frameworks, including component-based architectures, responsive and accessible user experiences, state management, browser diagnostics, and automated UI testing.

• Ability to learn and work effectively within Sage X3 business processes, metadata-driven architectures, extensibility models, modernization initiatives, and SaaS transformation programs.

• Strong written and verbal English communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across distributed global engineering teams and contribute to technical design discussions and code reviews.

Modern platform skills for this role

• Implement and test service/API contracts and integrations in the assigned discipline; follow secure CI/CD, identity/secrets and telemetry patterns, and contribute compatibility, upgrade and rollback checks. Build hands-on container or IaC skills when required by the owned service, using team-supported paths.

Preferred skills

• Commercial ERP, manufacturing, distribution or finance experience, including L4G/4GL or Progress 4GL.

• React, automated API testing, telemetry, batch processing or migration tooling.

• Practical use of AI coding assistants with human review and regression checks.

Experience and qualifications

Typically 2+ years of professional software development, or equivalent practical experience. Degree, diploma or apprenticeship in computer science, engineering or a related discipline is desirable.

Professional English is required for global collaboration. Equivalent practical experience is valued alongside formal qualifications.

Expected outcomes / success measures

• Owned work is delivered to agreed acceptance criteria with useful tests and no avoidable regression.

• The engineer builds confidence in X3 domain knowledge and contributes to safe modernisation decisions.

• Defects, risks and support issues are surfaced early with enough evidence to act.

• Learning, review feedback and delivery estimates become more accurate over time.

Measures should be agreed with the squad and reviewed through the X3 monthly scorecard and quarterly evidence gates. For this role’s owned scope, show how customer behaviour and partner investment are preserved, capabilities become portable, secure, cloud-operable and upgradeable, and quality, reliability, supportability and rollback are proven. Include safe migration and improved cost or delivery economics where relevant.

Key stakeholders and collaboration model

Works with Senior and Principal Engineers, Automation, Product, Architecture, Security, Cloud Support/L3 and Customer Services. India-based delivery is integrated with distributed squads and planned Europe/North America overlap.

Sage behaviours / leadership expectations

Customer Focus, Action Orientation, Trust, Innovation and Collaboration. Asks good questions, honours commitments, learns from feedback and keeps quality visible.

Every colleague is expected to protect customer continuity, partner investment, security and the integrity of evidence. Leaders additionally create clarity, develop talent and make accountable decisions visible.

Core accountabilities and decision ownership

• Implement features, fixes, APIs, components or migration assets from clear designs and acceptance criteria.

• Write maintainable code and automated tests, participate in review, and keep technical documentation and operational notes current.

• Learn X3 processes, metadata, Xtrem/X3 architecture and the effect of changes on customers, partners and upgrades.

• Use CI/CD, observability and local diagnostics to find problems early; escalate uncertainty with evidence.

• Contribute to refactoring, automation, accessibility, performance and reliability improvements within the squad.

Decision ownership:

Implementation choices within agreed patterns, test coverage for owned changes, and prompt escalation when requirements, customer behaviour, security or rollback are unclear.

Common capability baseline

All X3 roles are expected to build capability in the following areas. Depth and decision scope increase with level:

• Understand X3 customer workflows, metadata, customisation and architecture well enough to protect supported behaviour, partner investment and SaaS readiness in the decisions owned by the role.

• Treat the internal platform as a product: use developer and operator research, feedback and adoption evidence to reduce cognitive load; provide self-service APIs and golden paths where they solve a demonstrated need.

• Use cloud-native service boundaries, versioned API contracts and event integration where appropriate, preserving compatibility and clear ownership across X3 capabilities.

• Apply CI/CD and secure software-supply-chain controls, with identity, secrets and policy enforcement built into relevant delivery and runtime paths.

• Make services diagnosable with OpenTelemetry-compatible logs, metrics and traces; define role-appropriate SLOs, reliability and resilience evidence.

• Manage performance and cost deliberately, and engineer lifecycle, upgrade, deprecation and rollback paths as part of supported capability ownership.

• Use migration, reconciliation and compatibility evidence to preserve customer data and behaviour while moving towards portable, secure, cloud-operable and upgradeable capabilities.

• Use AI-assisted engineering securely, with human review, privacy and IP protection, regression evidence and a recovery path; use deterministic methods when they are more appropriate.

• Depth follows role scope: engineers demonstrate hands-on lifecycle capability in their discipline; managers, product and programme leaders, and architects need decision-relevant fluency, not universal coding or every tool. Containerisation and Kubernetes are required for all engineering roles. Infrastructure as code, GitOps and a custom internal developer platform apply where the role owns those paths.