Senior Software Engineer (12 Month Fixed-Term Contract)

LADbible Group; Manchester; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

The LADbible Group is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to help build and develop a growing portfolio of AI-powered products and business tools in Manchester. You will work closely with technical and business stakeholders to articulate problems, shape ideas and make sound architectural decisions.

This hands-on role covers the full product lifecycle, contributes to existing platforms and new products, and requires ownership of significant areas of work while enhancing engineering practices as

Qualifications

• Strong foundation in full-stack development and system design.
• Experience integrating generative AI or large language models into applications.
• Ability to review AI-generated output for quality, security and maintainability.
• Proven ability to work across unfamiliar systems and make sound technical trade-offs.

Responsibilities

• Lead features and technical improvements from discovery through deployment and ongoing support.
• Build and maintain full-stack applications with web interfaces, APIs, databases and background services.
• Integrate AI models into product workflows, evaluating output quality, cost, performance and privacy.
• Design secure authentication, permissions and data boundaries for products used across teams and clients.
• Improve automated testing, observability and deployment processes.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to turn business needs into clear requirements and practical designs.

Skills

Full-stack development

AI integration

Cloud architecture

Security

Observability

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Node.js

Google Cloud

Terraform

Job description

• We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help build and develop a growing portfolio of AI-powered products and business tools


• You'll work closely with technical and business stakeholders to understand problems, shape ideas and make sound architectural decisions


• You'll then take those ideas through implementation, deployment and ongoing improvement, delivering secure and reliable applications that solve practical business needs


• This is a hands-on role covering the full product lifecycle. You'll contribute to both existing platforms and new products, take ownership of significant areas of work and help strengthen our engineering practices as the portfolio grows


• AI-assisted engineering is a core part of how we investigate problems, develop software, test changes and iterate


• These tools support engineering judgement rather than replace it. You'll be expected to define clear requirements, design appropriate systems and break complex work into manageable tasks


• You'll critically review AI-generated output, verify the resulting behaviour and remain accountable for the quality, security and maintainability of everything you deliver


• You'll also help integrate AI capabilities into our products. This includes identifying where AI can add meaningful value, evaluating model outputs and recognising when conventional software or human review is the better approach


• AI tools must be used responsibly and in line with our security, privacy and data-handling requirements


• Lead features and technical improvements from discovery and solution design through to deployment and ongoing support


• Work with stakeholders to turn business needs into clear requirements, practical technical designs and accessible, easy-to-use products


• Build and maintain full-stack applications, including web interfaces, APIs, databases and background services


• Develop reliable data pipelines and integrations with external platforms and services


• Integrate AI models into product workflows, considering output quality, evaluation, cost, performance, privacy and failure handling


• Design secure authentication, permissions and data boundaries for products used across different teams and, where relevant, clients


• Improve automated testing, observability and deployment processes


• Investigate and resolve complex issues across applications, infrastructure and third-party integrations


• Contribute to technical standards through design discussions, code reviews and pragmatic architectural decisions


• Document important decisions and share knowledge so that the wider team can confidently maintain and extend the systems you build


• Our stack includes TypeScript, React, Next.js, Node.js and Google Cloud, alongside Terraform and automated delivery pipelines


• Experience with some of these technologies would be valuable, but we do not expect every candidate to have worked with all of them


• Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to become effective in unfamiliar systems are more important


• What success looks like:


• You'll deliver useful capabilities that teams adopt and trust. You'll improve the reliability, security and maintainability of our products and help establish effective, repeatable ways of building high-quality software with AI

• The ability to diagnose complex problems, work effectively across unfamiliar systems and make well-reasoned technical trade-offs


• Experience integrating generative AI or large language models into applications, alongside an understanding of their limitations and how to evaluate output quality


• A pragmatic approach to balancing delivery speed with security, reliability and maintainability


• Strong experience designing, delivering and supporting full-stack production applications


• Sound engineering judgement across architecture, APIs, data modelling, security and cloud infrastructure


• A collaborative approach to reviewing work, sharing knowledge and improving engineering practices


• Confidence working with evolving requirements, taking ownership and communicating clearly with both technical and non-technical colleagues


• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools for substantial engineering work, including reviewing, testing, debugging and correcting generated code


• If your experience does not match every point but you believe you can make a strong contribution, we still encourage you to apply