Software Engineering Team Lead

Package description

Salary: £70,000 - £80,000

Band: D

Contract type: continuing

Location: Newcastle (one / two days per week in our office at Newcastle Broadcasting Centre on Barrack Road)

Our comprehensive benefits package includes:

•    An employer pension contribution of up to 10%

•    26 days’ annual leave (based on full time hours) + bank holidays and the option to buy/sell additional days

•    Contributory lifestyle benefit options including discounts at hundreds of retailers, cycle to work scheme, discounted gym memberships and healthcare schemes

•    Employee assistance and well-being programmes

•    Learning and development tailored to your role – this could include industry recognised qualifications, coaching and mentoring

•    An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join staff networks including: Women’s Network, National Disability Networks and many more.

Family friendly flexible working arrangements, such as hybrid working, job sharing, flexi-time and compressed hours can be requested.

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and especially welcome individuals from underrepresented groups.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at any time, please let us know by contacting us on [email protected] with the job reference in the subject.

Job introduction

Step into the world of the BBC, one of the UK's most iconic and beloved brands, where every working day is as unique as it is rewarding. Every tick of the clock, our content reaches millions of people globally, which is made possible by our top-notch Software Engineering team. They've been instrumental in pioneering innovative products and unique features that have firmly positioned us at the forefront of our industry. We don't merely adapt to an ever-changing world - we set the pace.

The BBC produces an incredibly varied range of content: from video, audio, and text; from comedy, drama, news, and educational content; and content produced all around the UK. With so much content being produced, it can be difficult to get the right content to the right person. The BBC is aiming to become more personalised to you, to get you to the content you love, quicker – the pan-BBC Recommendations team will be looking at how we can provide recommendations across all of the BBC’s content (iPlayer, Sounds, News, Sport, etc.) to our audience.

The BBC is a place where you will be able to make a real difference. You will be part of an inclusive culture that values diversity, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you will be empowered to fulfil your potential. You’ll be doing this from our brand-new tech hub in Newcastle, which has been launched this year, as part of our commitment to investing across the UK.

We offer a warm welcome with full support settling in and foster a culture where everyone has an opportunity to succeed.  We're deeply proud of our values, which are intrinsic to the way we behave every day.  We take them seriously because we want our culture to thrive.  We want people to really enjoy working with us and get a buzz from knowing that what they are doing is making a difference and enhancing people's lives.

Interview process

A two hour interview made up of two parts will be conducted to evaluate your suitability for this role:

    • A 55min technical presentation and discussion.

    • A 10 min break.

    • A 55min competency based interview around leadership and management.

The interview will be led by the Engineering Manager leading this area of the BBC and other panel members. This allows you the opportunity to ask questions directly about this area.

If we feel your suitability is not for this role but would be for a different Software Engineering Lead role here at the BBC, we may invite you back to a shorter focused discussion regarding that particular role with the hiring manager for that team

Main responsibilities

We're looking for a Software Engineering Team Lead, who will represent and support our multi-disciplinary engineering teams within the BBC’s new pan-BBC Recommendations team. We value solid technical knowledge; hands-on experience is a bonus but not a deal-breaker. Our dream candidate is:

•    Dedicated to building and nurturing a diverse engineering team.

•    Passionate about supporting, mentoring, and developing high-performing engineers through regular 1:1s, continuous feedback, and strong relationships with team leads.

•    Experienced or interested in both technical and people leadership; understands the ingredients to brew a culture of learning that's inclusive and inspiring.

•    Accountable for upholding technical methodologies and decision-making in line with the BBC's values.

•    Capable of working with and influencing a diverse array of stakeholders, both technical and non-technical.

•    Energised by the prospect of crafting beautiful products and adding that extra bit of sparkle.

•    Convinced that diverse thinking leads to better outcomes and ensures everyone's opinion is voiced.

•    Known for being a team player, always ready to roll up your sleeves to get the job done.

•    Dedicated to growing the Tech Hub, and eager to engage with the North-East tech community.

The role will be for majority of the time a hands-off role regarding coding, but may need now and again some hands-on. The main requirements are someone with a background in Software Engineering, and the ability to lead teams. Experience working with Data Scientists to develop and deploy ML systems would be ideal, but is not essential. The hands-off element will involve managing internal and external stakeholders (both tech and non-tech), understanding business challenges, setting the team up for success, as well as defining requirements and technical roadmap

Our tech stack

The team is a backend team that works with Data Scientists to develop and deploy ML Recommendation systems. Below are some of the tools/ technologies we currently use in our teams:

•    ML/AI: MLOps, AWS SageMaker

•    Languages: Python, TypeScript, JavaScript

•    Cloud: AWS (S3, EC2, SQS, Lambda, ElasticSearch/OpenSearch, etc)

•    Deployment: Codebuild, CodePipeline.

•    Testing: TDD, BDD, end-to-end, load testing

•    Database: DynamoDB, Redis

•    Stream-Processing: Apache Airflow, Beam, Kafka, Flink

•    Techniques: MLOps, infrastructure, CI/CD

We create and support reliable and scalable cloud-based services on Amazon Web Services, use Git and GitHub for version control and practice pair programming and Test-Driven Development where possible.

In a nutshell, we seek a leader who champions inclusivity, nurtures talent, and upholds the BBC's values, all while driving technical excellence. If this sounds like your cup of tea, we'd love to hear from you.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants.  Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us.  Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC.  We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles.  The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief.  We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

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