Job Introduction

BBC iPlayer is one of the UK’s most well-known and loved brands, and we’re looking for passionate members to join our collaborative, cross-discipline, agile teams. We welcome applications from all, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, social background, religion and/or belief.

It is an exciting time to join the team, as our mission is to be the future of BBC TV. This is a place where your work impacts millions of iPlayer users every day. You will have the opportunity to lead the iPlayer Recommendations team that powers every personalised user experience across the iPlayer client family (TV, Mobile and Web).

As a Software Engineering Team Lead, you will lead the team of Data and Software engineers that design and implements recommendations engines using machine learning and the supporting technology stack that collects, transforms, decorates and stores user, content and interaction data. This is an opportunity to inform the Product team on how to use recommendations and to research and design new approaches to recommendations at the BBC.

Role Responsibility

• Technical Leadership for a team of to 4
• Machine Learning and Recommendations technology leadership
• Work with stakeholders across the iPlayer organisation to align with goals and mission
• Mentor and Coach your direct reports
• Provide technical leadership up to senior stakeholders.

Why choose us?

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 Python, Spark and AWS Serverless (GLU, Redis) and all team members have the opportunity to 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.

The Ideal Candidate

Essential Skills & Experience

• Have the ability to lead ,coach. mentor and line-manage a team of 4+ engineers
• Have experience working with cross discipline peers including Product Managers, Delivery Mangers and Design leads.
• Have a deep understanding of system design, data structures and algorithms and understand how to apply them to design pragmatic solutions.
• Have experience with AWS managed services.
• Have extensive experience working hands-on in an agile environment.
• Have experience in identifying, debugging and resolving complex production issues.

 Desirable Skills & Experience

• Establishing and promoting best practices within teams
• Learning new software skills and working with new technologies
• Research and Design recommendations engines for millions of users

Package Description

Band: D
Contract type: Permanent
Location: London

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.

The situation regarding the coronavirus outbreak is developing quickly and the BBC is keen to continue to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people across the BBC, while continuing to protect our services. To reduce the risk access to BBC buildings is limited to those essential to our broadcast output. From Wednesday 18th March until further notice all assessments and interviews will be conducted remotely. For more information go to https://www.bbc.co.uk/careers/

About the Company

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.

 Closing Date10 October, 2022