React Job: Software Engineering Team Lead - Experimentation

Job Introduction

We want the BBC to be as renowned for the quality of its engineering as it is for the quality of its content. We aspire to be the best, so that we can engineer outstanding digital products, at scale. Working here in an engineering leadership role means leading a world-class team and a chance to do the most meaningful work of your career

The BBC is looking to build a culture of experimentation across its whole digital estate. Our team’s aim is to empower people across the BBC to look for the features that will bring most value to our audiences. Our experiments team is currently working to help teams that are working on some of our biggest product. To build, maintain and understand experiments they are doing on their products. We are a full stack team working with data pipelines and front-end apps so there is a real variety of challenges for you to get excited about. We are a multi-disciplinary team working in partnership with our colleagues in Data Science, UX, Product and Delivery. We welcome applications from all, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, social background, religion and/or belief.

We’re looking for a Software Engineering Team Lead who cares about creating performant, accessible and operationally excellent services and experiences. We’re looking for someone who values communication and collaborative approaches to finding the right solution and is willing and excited to learn new skills and share their knowledge with others. We are also looking for someone who can help us grow our experiments team, by hiring the right people to join us.

Main Responsibilities

• Recruit, mentor and manage an effective software engineering team
• Be accountable for the design, development and operation of effective software that meets complex requirements for the immediate team and broader BBC
• Be hands-on wherever possible, pairing with team members to achieve the team’s tasks and objectives
• Work in an agile, cross-discipline environment
• Work with delivery, product and UX leads to design software and create implementable specifications and tasks at product and roadmap level
• Learn new technologies, keep abreast of existing technologies and help introduce them where appropriate
• Promote skills, knowledge sharing and personal development
• Understand, contribute to, and promote the product goals/priorities
• Ensure the team’s software works well in its operating environment
• Ensure that the team’s technical product documentation is always complete, accurate and coherent
• Ensure troubleshooting and resolution of issues throughout the product life cycle including out-of-hours support for incident resolution
• Work with other technical leaders in the broader organisation to define, document and distribute best practice and standards
• Define, lead and encourage continuous improvement of the team’s delivery and development processes

Are you the right candidate?

Technical Skills & Experience:

• Back End: EMR, Spark, EC2, Typescript, S3, Cloudwatch, Athena, MWAA, Redshift, Python
• Front End: React, NodeJS, NextJS,
• Expertise in modern development tools and practices (e.g CI/CD, DevSecOps, Pair Programming, TDD)
• Expertise in choosing and applying design patterns
• Leading a data focused team alongside data engineers
• Developing software with scale, security and reliability in mind

Essential Leadership Skills & Experience:

• Recruitment, line management and mentoring experience
• Effective leadership and collaboration inside and beyond a team
• The ability to influence diverse and senior stakeholders effectively
• Establishing and promoting best practices within teams
• Being flexible, and comfortable adapting to changing priorities, as well as prioritising work across multiple initiatives yourself

About the BBC

We care a lot about our technology, for example keeping our stack up-to-date, following best practices and industry standards. Our current stack utilises ReactJS, React Router, Redux, Typescript and NodeJS on AWS, and all team members can steer our technical direction.

We also care a lot about the people in our teams. There are great opportunities to grow your career within the team and BBC, and a mentorship programme to make sure you are well-supported. We believe strongly in developing talent from within the team. We have training and conference budgets, and 10% of your time is dedicated for you to explore, innovate and learn new technologies. There are also regular opportunities to collaborate with other teams around the BBC.

We are happy to consider flexible work based on your personal situation, such as hybrid working.

The BBC is committed to building a culturally diverse workforce and therefore strongly encourages applications from underrepresented groups. We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of their background.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here

Package Description

Band: D
Contract type: Permanent
Location: Salford, UK

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

• Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
• Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
• Benefits- We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.