[LRUG] [JOBS] Junior Ruby Developer for sustainability charity, Energy Sparks
Claudia Towner
hello at energysparks.uk
Fri Dec 19 09:54:06 PST 2025
Hi all,
Are you a Junior Ruby Developer looking to have an environmental and social
impact through your work?
We are seeking a Junior Software Developer for Energy Sparks
<https://energysparks.uk/>, a charity helping young people to reduce their
school’s carbon footprint.
We are looking to add extra capacity to our small in-house development team
to help us make faster progress in specific areas of our roadmap. In
particular, to help develop and improve the internal tools and reports that
will allow us to continue to scale our operations.
We are looking for a highly motivated, dynamic individual with excellent
problem-solving skills; a self-starter who enjoys working in an agile
environment. Someone who is as excited about Energy Sparks’ potential as we
are and who will work with us to develop a sustainable energy management
and education platform for schools.
This is a one year, fixed term contract, with the possibility of future
extension.
This is a remote position, but we are looking for a developer who is based
within easy commuting distance of Bath to allow for some regular
(approximately monthly) meetings and co-working sessions with our CTO and
other team members.
Salary: up to £30,000 dependent on experience
Application deadline: Monday 12th January 2026 10am
About us
Energy Sparks (https://energysparks.uk/) is an online energy analysis tool
and energy education programme specifically designed to help schools reduce
their electricity and gas usage through the analysis of smart meter data.
Energy Sparks helps pupils and the wider school community to reduce their
school’s carbon emissions, and make a real contribution to addressing the
'climate emergency'.
Energy Sparks started in 2017 and is now working with around 1000 schools
across the UK. We are a small, remote team of 13 people, with the majority
of our team based in the Bath and Bristol area.
About the application
Energy Sparks is a Ruby on Rails web application that uses a Postgres
database deployed within a managed infrastructure (Amazon AWS, using
ElasticBeanstalk, RDS, Lambda and S3).
The front end uses JQuery and customised Bootstrap styles, while the
backend integrates with a variety of third-party APIs to access smart
meter, weather and other energy data sources.
Our software is fully open source. Further details can be found at:
https://github.com/Energy-Sparks/energy-sparks
We prioritise our work using Trello, using a simple Kanban based workflow.
We ensure we allocate time both developing new features and maintenance to
help us improve our code, infrastructure and processes.
Junior Developer Role
This role will have a specific focus on developing and improving the
internal tools used to support the day-to-day operational work required to
maintain our energy management platform.
1.
Work with the CTO to build and maintain an improved suite of internal
operational tools and dashboards that will allow us to support users during
onboarding, and manage and monitor the loading of energy data into our
platform
2.
Contribute to the improvement of existing operational tools and reports,
so they continue to meet our needs
3.
Take responsibility for identifying and fixing bugs and operational
issues that are highlighted by other team members or our reporting systems
4.
Help maintain and improve code quality and test coverage to ensure we
deliver a robust service to our users
5.
Help document the software to facilitate maintenance and use by other
team members, and to ensure future sustainability
6.
Work with the CTO and other Energy Sparks team members to design and
deliver new application features, according to project budgets and
milestones
7.
Work with the rest of the Energy Sparks team to respond to user feedback
to improve the Energy Sparks application to maximise user engagement and
carbon emission reductions at participating schools
Required experience:
Essential:
-
A degree in software development/engineering, computer science or
related subject, or equivalent relevant experience.
-
Several years of demonstrable programming experience in Ruby or similar
programming language(s), gained either through study, personal projects, or
commercial work.
-
Experience with Ruby and the Ruby on Rails framework, gained either
through study, personal projects, or commercial work.
-
Understanding of relational databases such as Postgres.
-
Working knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS, with an interest in
writing accessible, user‑friendly interfaces.
-
Experience of using Git and GitHub for version control.
-
Exposure to testing frameworks like RSpec or Capybara, or enthusiasm to
learn test‑driven development.
-
A willingness to work in an agile, iterative way and deliver value in
small steps.
-
A proactive attitude, with the ability to organise your work, solve
problems creatively, and stay calm under pressure.
-
An interest in sustainability and supporting young people in tackling
climate change.
-
A clear commitment to learning, growing, and developing your skills.
Nice to have experience:
-
Experience building or maintaining web applications, even if small‑scale
or academic projects.
-
Experience working on data‑focused applications or presenting complex
data to users.
-
Experience working with third‑party APIs, such as integrating external
data or services into an application.
-
Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS) or a willingness to learn
how to deploy web applications.
Benefits
1.
Salary up to £30,000 dependent on experience
2.
12% employer pension contribution
3.
30 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays
4.
Flexible working hours. We are happy to discuss part-time or term-time
working for the right candidate.
5.
The opportunity to really make a difference reducing carbon emissions
and helping young people to live sustainable lives.
How to apply
Please send the following by email to recruitment at energysparks.uk:
-
A full curriculum vitae
-
A link to your github profile or projects; and/or a portfolio that
demonstrates your previous work and experience
-
A covering letter
-
Please use the first part of the cover letter as an opportunity to
add to the information you have shared in your CV, and ensure that you
cover the following (max 2 pages for this section):
-
Why are you interested in this role at Energy Sparks?
-
How can you contribute to Energy Sparks in this new role? Please
highlight relevant experience and demonstrate how your skills
match the
specific requirements of the role as set out in the job
description and
person specification.
-
In the second part of the cover letter, please answer the following
skill-based questions which are designed to assess how you might
perform in
the Junior Developer role and react to real-life work situations (max 250
words per answer).
-
Explain, with reference to your Github profile or portfolio, how a
previous software project you were involved with has given
you experience
with test-driven development
-
Explain how you would approach developing an understanding of our
codebase and development process
Applicants are encouraged to find out more about Energy Sparks at
http://www.energysparks.uk
To be considered for this role, all applicants must currently have the
right to work in the UK or will have secured the right to work in the UK by
the date of commencement of employment.
Energy Sparks is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applications
regardless of race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or
age.
No agencies
Thanks
Claudia
--
Dr Claudia Towner
Energy Sparks CEO
claudia.towner at energysparks.uk <hello at energysparks.uk>
01225 723924
http://www.energysparks.uk/
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