Senior Backend Developer

Guardian News and Media Limited; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 79,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private healthcare

Life cover

Eye tests

Dental insurance

Pension scheme

Volunteer days

Cycle to work

Gym membership

Job summary

The Guardian is seeking a Senior Backend Software Developer to join the Apps Experience team on a 12 month fixed contract. You’ll work across Scala back-end and Typescript front-end, running in AWS, with a culture of collaboration.

You’ll be part of a cross-functional team shaping the future of digital journalism, contributing to product decisions and engineering best practices while growing your skills. The role mixes hands-on coding with architectural input.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in back-end Scala development.
• Strong balance of backend (Scala) and frontend (Typescript) work.
• Experience deploying in AWS and cloud environments.
• Collaborative, cross-functional working style and ownership of features.
• Comfort with contributing to open source projects.

Responsibilities

• Develop scalable backend services in Scala and front-end components in Typescript.
• Work in a cross-functional team to rapidly iterate and release features.
• Collaborate closely with editorial and commercial colleagues.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and engineering best practices.
• Grow skills and influence product direction within the team.

Skills

Scala

Typescript

AWS

Cross-functional teamwork

Open Source

Tools

GitHub

Job description

Join our team at the Guardian and be a part of a diverse and inclusive global organisation that delivers fearless, investigative journalism and holds power to account. Our team of award-winning journalists, cutting-edge commercial professionals and industry-leading digital experts are committed to making a difference and represent a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. We offer a challenging and exciting environment for career development, with a focus on training, growth and fostering an inclusive culture.

We are now looking for a Senior Backend Software Developer to join our Apps Experience team on a 12 month fixed contract.

You could be building the products that showcase our progressive and independent journalism, crafting the tools that journalists use to write their stories, developing the services that allow those stories to be distributed across the globe, or safeguarding our financial future.

About the role

• You’ll mostly be programming in Scala and Typescript, running in AWS, but we use the tool that best fits the problem.
• You’ll be working in a cross-functional team, which is empowered to rapidly iterate and release new features.
• You won’t be coding in isolation - our culture is strongly collaborative, whether pair programming with other developers or working closely with editorial and commercial colleagues.
• Sometimes deciding what code to write is as hard as writing the code itself. As an engineer you’ll be involved in product decisions as well as technical ones.
• You have a strong interest in growing your skills even further.

Much of our code is openly available on GitHub, and some of our projects are widely used throughout the Open Source community. Many of our developers regularly attend and present at conferences. Please visit our Guardian Developers site and the Guardian Developer blog for more information about working in the Digital Development team.

About you

• As a full stack engineer, you’ll be equally willing to dive into a purely functional and composable Scala back-end, or a complex Typescript front-end.
• You inspire the people you work with, and are inspired by them in return.
• You contribute to the direction of your team’s products
• You are passionate about spreading engineering best practice beyond your immediate team.
• You are excited by the opportunity to shape the future of digital journalism.
• Your interests go beyond just your team’s objectives; you are curious about where the organisation is moving as a whole.
• You have a strong interest in growing your skills.
• You can make reasoned choices regarding what technologies to use and when to use them.
• We believe diversity of people, backgrounds, experience and ideas helps us to build better products and achieve more. We welcome applicants who have taken traditional and non-traditional career paths into software development.

We actively encourage applications from groups traditionally underrepresented in the UK media

Our engineers and developers operate in a hybrid environment working 1 day a week from our offices in Kings Cross and 4 days a week remotely.

We strive for transparency in remuneration. The salary for new Senior Developers at the Guardian is £72,000 per year.

We value and respect all differences (seen and unseen) in all people. We aspire to have inclusive working experiences and an environment that reflects the audience we serve, where our people have equal access to career development opportunities, their voices are heard and can contribute to our future. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. Many of our staff work flexibly and we will consider all requests for flexible working arrangements.

Benefits at the Guardian

You’ll have 30 days of annual leave per year (plus bank holidays) with the option to purchase an additional 5 days. Our pension scheme is generous; if you contribute 5% then we will contribute 8-12% (depending on your age). We believe in giving back, which is why employees are given 2 volunteering days annually and the option of payroll giving. Season ticket loans are also available.

You are entitled to private healthcare, life cover, income protection, and eye tests. You can also opt in to dental insurance.

We have enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave policies in place. We also support our employees by offering an IVF, menopause, baby loss, and trans equality policy.

Culture and wellbeing

We want everyone to feel like they belong at the Guardian and we champion diversity of thought. Our various employee forums provide a platform to use their voice to foster an inclusive workplace. We became the first major media organisation to achieve B Corp status.

We offer tools to help you prioritise your wellbeing including access to our employee benefits platform which provides tailored support for health and wellbeing. In addition, we also offer free yoga and pilates classes. These run alongside our corporate gym membership and cycle to work scheme.

Our canteen has views overlooking the Regents Canal and caters for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Learning and development

We encourage personal and professional growth. Employees have access to a broad range of tools and solutions, and we are happy to support the pursuit of professional qualifications through vocational courses and apprenticeships.