Software Infrastructure Engineer
Location: Manchester
Salary: Up to £70,000 DOE

KO2’s client is an international, cutting-edge software engineering consultancy. They provide innovative solutions to some of the world’s most challenging system engineering challenges, across a range of industry sectors including Automotive, IoT, Meditech, Finance and Industrial Automation. With their office based in Central Manchester, just a short walk from Manchester Piccadilly station they are easily commutable by public transport from large parts of the Northwest region.

They are looking for software infrastructure engineer whose focus will be designing and delivering the infrastructure that enables them to deliver their technology stacks to customers.

Your key responsibilities:

• Support and enable the software engineering teams through delivery of scalable and distributed infrastructure able to be run in cloud and in on-prem contexts.
• Provide input to and evaluation of infrastructure technology choices.
• Be part of and/or support the infrastructure teams to deliver and operate solutions to customers in highly regulated environments.
• Mentoring software infrastructure engineers and helping to curate internal training and development programmes.

We are looking for candidates with the following experience:

• Strong Linux and Git skills
• Proven production experience deploying and managing infrastructure on at least one major Cloud Service provider, using tooling such as Terraform.
• Hands-on production experience developing, deploying, and operating Kubernetes clusters; experience running this on OpenStack is an advantage.
• Confident provisioning and deploying to bare-metal instances using tooling such as Ansible.
• Solid operational expertise in managing production environments, with knowledge of methodologies such as SRE considered a plus.
• A genuine interest in, and ideally hands-on involvement with, FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) communities and/or projects.

Apply today for this exciting, new opportunity within Software Infrastructure.

Product Compliance Engineer
Rochdale area | Hybrid WFH – 2 days from home a week

£50,000 to £60,000

How do you know the products you use are safe? In most cases, the answer is product compliance. In hazardous industries such as oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical, it is compliance engineers who make sure electronic equipment can operate in explosive atmospheres without becoming the ignition source. This role puts you at the centre of that work.

KO2’s client is a long-established, global manufacturer of electronic products used in hazardous area and process industry applications worldwide. Their UK R&D centre designs intrinsically safe equipment, devices that limit electrical energy entering Zone 0, 1 and 2 environments so that a fault can never release enough energy to cause an explosion.

The opportunity to step up

This is a succession role. The company’s current compliance engineer, a highly respected specialist, retires at the end of next year, and the business wants their successor in place well ahead of that. Depending on your start date, you could have a year or more working directly alongside them, learning the products, the standards landscape and the relationships with certifying bodies before taking full ownership of the role.

That makes this a genuine opportunity for someone to step up. You do not need to be the finished article. The client will consider engineers earlier in their compliance career, or engineers from design, test or EMC backgrounds who have worked with standards and want to specialise, provided you have a real aptitude for reading and interpreting them. You will not be isolated either. You will sit within the R&D team, work closely with a counterpart compliance engineer in Europe, and be part of an international network of standards experts across the wider group.

What you will be doing

• Implementing and organising Ex approvals such as ATEX and IECEx, alongside electrical safety standards
• Determining which standards and legal requirements apply to new and existing products
• Reviewing electrical schematics and R&D designs against the relevant standards, and guiding design engineers on compliance from the start of a project
• Producing critical safety documentation to certification standard
• Reviewing existing products against current international approvals and initiating updates where needed
• Selecting, managing and negotiating with external certifying bodies and inspection organisations, both in the UK and internationally

There is no customer site travel in this role. Beyond occasional short-term international trips, including standards expert meetings held every couple of years, you will be based at the R&D centre and at home.

What you will need

• A degree in engineering, physics or another analytical subject
• A sound grasp of electronics fundamentals, for example how transistors and Zener diodes behave in a circuit
• Genuine interest in reading, interpreting and debating standards, this is the heart of the role
• Strong attention to detail and a structured, well-documented way of working
• The confidence to negotiate and hold your ground with certification bodies and senior engineers

Experience with ATEX, IECEx, LVD, EMC or UKCA is valuable but not essential. Attitude and aptitude matter more than a perfect CV match.

Why this role

Compliance sign-off carries real seniority here. Nothing ships without it, and the role is respected accordingly across R&D and the wider business. You will become the UK authority on hazardous area compliance for a profitable, stable, global manufacturer, with a long structured handover from the person who currently holds that position.

To apply or for a confidential conversation about the role, contact KO2 Embedded Recruitment Solutions.

Software Engineer – C++, C and/or C#

Location: Manchester + Hybrid Working From Home
Salary: Up to £57,000 DOE + Benefits

KO2’s client is seeking a Software Engineer to join their established engineering team based in Manchester. This is an excellent opportunity for a software developer who enjoys solving technical challenges, working within a collaborative environment, and continuously developing their skills.

The role is particularly suited to engineers who have experience developing software for real-world products, embedded systems, or environments where performance, efficiency, and resource management are important considerations.

KO2’s client has a proven track record of supporting engineers from a range of technical backgrounds and helping them develop new skills whilst working on innovative products.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and maintain high-quality software solutions.
• Develop software that forms part of real-world products and systems.
• Collaborate with engineers and stakeholders to deliver reliable and efficient solutions.
• Participate in code reviews and contribute to software architecture and design discussions.
• Investigate, troubleshoot, and resolve technical issues.
• Support continuous improvement of development processes and engineering best practices.

What KO2’s Client Is Looking For

Essential

• Commercial experience in object-oriented software development.
• Strong understanding of software engineering principles and development practices.
• Experience with programming language such as C#, C, C++
• Microsoft Visual Studio & git version control.
• Experience working on software that interacts with hardware, physical products, industrial systems, or embedded platforms, or a genuine interest in moving into this type of environment.
• Understanding of performance optimisation, efficient memory usage, or development within resource-constrained environments.
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively within a team.

Desirable

• Experience with embedded software development.
• Experience working within memory-constrained or performance-critical systems.
• Experience with C# and .NET technologies.
• Fieldbus, industrial Ethernet protocols, MQTT
• Knowledge of modern software development methodologies.
• Exposure to electronics, industrial automation, instrumentation, IoT, or other product-development environments.

The Person

KO2’s client values attitude, curiosity, and a willingness to learn just as highly as technical capability. They are open to candidates from a variety of backgrounds, including embedded systems, industrial software, games development, and other engineering disciplines.

The ideal candidate will enjoy understanding how software interacts with real products and systems and will be motivated by solving complex technical problems. They will be someone who embraces learning opportunities and can grow within a supportive engineering team.

What’s On Offer

• Hybrid working, combining home working with time in the Manchester office.
• A supportive and collaborative engineering environment.
• Exposure to technically challenging projects and real-world products.
• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Ongoing mentoring and professional development opportunities.
• Long-term career progression within a growing business.

Apply

If you’re a Software Engineer with experience of, or an interest in, embedded systems, real-world products, or resource-constrained environments, and you’re looking for a role where your potential is valued as highly as your current experience, KO2’s client would be keen to hear from you.

Electronics Engineer

Chester Area

Up to £65,000 + Bonus

KO2’s client is a well-established, employee-owned consultancy that designs bespoke embedded electronic products for a wide range of applications. With a strong reputation for delivering high-quality engineering solutions, they combine in-house product development with custom design work, giving engineers the chance to work on varied, technically challenging projects across the full lifecycle.

They are now looking for a Mid to Senior Electronics Engineer with strong embedded software experience to join their growing team.

This is a hands-on role sitting right at the hardware–software boundary. You’ll be involved in everything from schematic capture and PCB design through to board bring-up and embedded C development, working on complex embedded systems including microcontroller and application processor-based designs.

What you’ll be doing:

• Designing analogue and digital electronics, including PCB layout
• Bringing up new hardware and debugging at board level using embedded software
• Developing embedded C code to support hardware validation and functionality
• Working across the full product lifecycle, from concept through to production
• Contributing to a range of projects, including next-generation embedded and IoT-style systems

What they’re looking for:

• A well-rounded electronics engineer with solid embedded software skills
• Strong experience in analogue and digital design
• Confidence with board bring-up and debugging using embedded C
• Experience with common interfaces such as SPI, I²C, UART, CAN
• Comfortable working with microcontrollers (e.g. ARM Cortex-M) and ideally application processors
• Someone adaptable and capable of picking up new technologies (e.g. Linux, FPGA, or higher-level software where required)

Desirable experience:

• Embedded Linux or RTOS experience
• Mains-powered design / power supply experience
• Experience with single board computer or similar embedded platforms
• Exposure to production or manufacturing environments

Why join KO2’s client?

This is an opportunity to join a collaborative, engineering-led environment where you’ll work on genuinely interesting products rather than narrow, siloed tasks. Engineers here are involved in real problem-solving, not just incremental changes.

The business offers a unique and highly attractive working pattern:

• Every other Friday off
• Early finish at 1pm on the alternate Friday

They are also employee-owned, which means you benefit directly from the company’s success.

This includes:

• A profit-related bonus, with up to £3,600 per year tax-free
• The opportunity to receive free shares and purchase additional shares in the business

Additional benefits include:

• Private medical insurance
• Competitive holiday allowance, increasing with service
• A supportive, non-corporate culture focused on quality engineering rather than long hours

This role is based on-site, reflecting the hands-on nature of the work, particularly around hardware development and lab-based testing.

If you’re an engineer who enjoys working across both electronics and embedded software, and you want to be part of a business where your work genuinely makes an impact, this is well worth exploring.