Job Description
Job Introduction
This is a role to be a Senior Architect in the BBC's Audience Content Experiences team. You'll work on a range of BBC's online products running on BBC online and apps specifically aimed at children. These include Bitesize (used by over 1 million users each week to help study and revise); and our collection of games apps that educate and inspire hundreds of thousands of children.
The ideal candidate will be passionate about both new technology opportunities, and new ways in which we can make websites, apps, and other digital services to entertain, educate and inform. It's an opportunity to make a difference, through being inventive and creative, and working with amazing teams.
In this role, you'll work with several product and development teams, and be a member of the BBC's architecture team. As such you'll be influencing both the products you are directly responsible for and the wider BBC digital strategy. You'll need to think big-picture on the opportunities, whilst also getting into the technical details of creating products on AWS and other platforms. You'll help make our apps and websites even better. And you'll play a key role in shaping what new children's experiences could be made, so that they excite and delight users.
The tech challenges you'll face in this role are tricky. You'll design and support the creation of many different solutions, for Games, Apps, Machine Learning and Server architectures. You'll be challenged regularly and will get to work on some exciting propositions. Colleagues and experts will support you at every step. And there's great opportunity to learn and grow, whilst keeping a good work-life balance.
Technology
Here are some of the technologies we use. If you apply for this role, we don't expect you to know all of these, as there will be opportunities to learn as you go.
Most of our products & services are hosted on AWS. We use serverless technologies such as Lambda, storage technologies such as DynamoDB and S3, and many other services including API Gateway, Cloudfront, Kinesis and Athena.
Our web tech stacks are predominantly based on Node.js, with a JavaScript/React.js web frontend. Our apps for children are mostly developed using the Capacitor.js framework and deployed to iOS and Android app stores. Our back-ends are mainly built using Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript), normally as micro-services with Rest APIs and event-driven patterns. We build our games with a variety of canvas and WebGL based technologies including Pixi and Phaser .
We use Python, Numpy, Scipy and AWS Lambda for our data science and machine learning algorithms.
For more information on the technology used in this role, see .
The day-to-day
Culture: In this role, you'll work both with the architecture team and with the relevant product/engineering teams. Every day you'll collaborate with a wide range of high-calibre professionals, of all disciplines. We have an open and respectful culture where everyone's opinions are valued.
Location: Most of the teams you'll work with are based in Salford; though some are also in London, Glasgow, and Cardiff. Our offices are great places to work - modern, bright, and well-equipped.
Tech: You'll get a Mac laptop, access to great collaboration software (such as Slack and Zoom), and, of course, a range of other tools and software to help you do your job effectively.
Growth: This is a flexible role, allowing you to shape it based on how you'd like to grow your skills and career. There are always plenty of opportunities to learn, take on new opportunities, attend conferences, and so much more.
Role Responsibility
Are you the right candidate?
Overall, you'll be passionate about working as a team on new technologies and opportunities, especially with regard to experiences for younger audiences.
Package Description
Band: D
Contract type: Permanent - full time
Location: Salford / Glasgow
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.
About the BBC
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 in the document attached below.
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
- Are you a creative technical architect (or have the experience to become one)?
- Do you have an interest in creating world-class websites, apps, and games?
- Do you want to develop groundbreaking ideas, work with cutting-edge technology, and help the BBC make incredible online experiences?
- Do you want to work with a range of multi-disciplinary experts, including amazing development teams who focus on best-practice engineering?
This is a role to be a Senior Architect in the BBC's Audience Content Experiences team. You'll work on a range of BBC's online products running on BBC online and apps specifically aimed at children. These include Bitesize (used by over 1 million users each week to help study and revise); and our collection of games apps that educate and inspire hundreds of thousands of children.
The ideal candidate will be passionate about both new technology opportunities, and new ways in which we can make websites, apps, and other digital services to entertain, educate and inform. It's an opportunity to make a difference, through being inventive and creative, and working with amazing teams.
In this role, you'll work with several product and development teams, and be a member of the BBC's architecture team. As such you'll be influencing both the products you are directly responsible for and the wider BBC digital strategy. You'll need to think big-picture on the opportunities, whilst also getting into the technical details of creating products on AWS and other platforms. You'll help make our apps and websites even better. And you'll play a key role in shaping what new children's experiences could be made, so that they excite and delight users.
The tech challenges you'll face in this role are tricky. You'll design and support the creation of many different solutions, for Games, Apps, Machine Learning and Server architectures. You'll be challenged regularly and will get to work on some exciting propositions. Colleagues and experts will support you at every step. And there's great opportunity to learn and grow, whilst keeping a good work-life balance.
Technology
Here are some of the technologies we use. If you apply for this role, we don't expect you to know all of these, as there will be opportunities to learn as you go.
Most of our products & services are hosted on AWS. We use serverless technologies such as Lambda, storage technologies such as DynamoDB and S3, and many other services including API Gateway, Cloudfront, Kinesis and Athena.
Our web tech stacks are predominantly based on Node.js, with a JavaScript/React.js web frontend. Our apps for children are mostly developed using the Capacitor.js framework and deployed to iOS and Android app stores. Our back-ends are mainly built using Node.js (JavaScript and TypeScript), normally as micro-services with Rest APIs and event-driven patterns. We build our games with a variety of canvas and WebGL based technologies including Pixi and Phaser .
We use Python, Numpy, Scipy and AWS Lambda for our data science and machine learning algorithms.
For more information on the technology used in this role, see .
The day-to-day
Culture: In this role, you'll work both with the architecture team and with the relevant product/engineering teams. Every day you'll collaborate with a wide range of high-calibre professionals, of all disciplines. We have an open and respectful culture where everyone's opinions are valued.
Location: Most of the teams you'll work with are based in Salford; though some are also in London, Glasgow, and Cardiff. Our offices are great places to work - modern, bright, and well-equipped.
Tech: You'll get a Mac laptop, access to great collaboration software (such as Slack and Zoom), and, of course, a range of other tools and software to help you do your job effectively.
Growth: This is a flexible role, allowing you to shape it based on how you'd like to grow your skills and career. There are always plenty of opportunities to learn, take on new opportunities, attend conferences, and so much more.
Role Responsibility
- Be a technology leader, in both in the BBC's architecture team, and in the Children's & Education product/engineering team.
- Develop the technology vision and strategy for your area, maintaining an awareness of the underlying business and technical strategic drivers and challenges faced by the BBC.
- Develop plans, designs and solutions that take a vision from idea to reality.
- Understand the technology landscape within the area that you support. Identify gaps, challenges and opportunities, and then use them to develop appropriate solutions. This will involve working with both internal teams and external suppliers.
- Work closely with colleagues and stakeholders from across multiple teams (including product, delivery, editorial, UX, engineering and architecture). Through collaboration, ensure everyone understands the requirements, strategy, and approach to deliver the best technology solution.
- Participate in the incubation of emerging technologies, architectures and approaches in order to understand the opportunities of creating new services, or using new technologies.
- Be able to represent the team in planning and governance meetings within your area(s) of work.
Are you the right candidate?
- If you're the ideal candidate, you'll have experience being a software architect, either officially in a role, or as part of an engineering or similar role.
- You'll have created websites at scale, and/or mobile apps, and/or powerful backends (APIs, etc.)
- You may also have helped develop interactive experiences, games, or other products that are especially suitable for younger audiences.
- You'll be experienced in cloud technologies, such as AWS. And you'll know at least the fundamentals of Internet networking, databases, API design, microservices, security, and other standard technologies in a modern online SOA.
- Experience in machine learning, voice, or data science, is a bonus.
- You'll be great at working across multiple teams and with many stakeholders. This role does not involve line management, but a key element of the role is to work with and help more junior members of the team, as a technical expert.
- You'll be a strong communicator. This role involves a lot of collaboration with both technical and non-technical teams. You'll need to work closely with others on ideas and solutions, and on resolving technical challenges.
Overall, you'll be passionate about working as a team on new technologies and opportunities, especially with regard to experiences for younger audiences.
Package Description
Band: D
Contract type: Permanent - full time
Location: Salford / Glasgow
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.
About the BBC
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 in the document attached below.
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
About BBC