What we look for in software engineers

What skills are we looking for?

Being clever is only the start. What makes us successful is the way our people work together. We routinely pair - typically with Claude Code as a default coding partner - stand around a whiteboard puzzling over a problem, and collaborate with our in-house researchers or other stakeholders to understand requirements. Human-human pairing remains valued for complex problems, onboarding, and code reviews.

You must thrive on being surrounded by other exceptional people. You'll know there is always more than one perspective on any problem, be willing to have your thinking challenged, and help work towards a consensus. We value people who lead with curiosity over ego - it's your emotional intelligence alongside your technical ability that will enable you to succeed.

In our engineers, we look for the same general qualities that we look for in all PortSwigger people: humility, altruism, leadership potential, energy, and many other traits. Being surrounded by people who are nice as well as brilliant is part of what keeps our work fun.

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What we don't fixate on

Tech stack.

We assume that you'll know your chosen language inside-out. But aside from that, knowledge of specific frameworks and libraries isn't essential. You'll be able to learn anything new very quickly anyway.

Years of experience.

We hire people with 20+ years of experience, and straight out of university, and everything in between. We are much more interested in how you think and work, than how long you have been doing it for.

Web security knowledge.

Surprisingly, for a cybersecurity company, our engineers don't need any existing domain knowledge. We have a world-class research team who can provide just-in-time expertise where needed.

Career path.

We also offer a Technical Lead path - a role that engineers grow into as they build deep expertise in our codebases, taking on architectural leadership within their team.