Senior Software Engineer - 12 Month FTC

LADbible Group; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

LADbible Group seeks a Senior Software Engineer to build and develop AI-powered products and business tools.

You will lead features from discovery through deployment, collaborate with stakeholders and shape secure, reliable applications that solve real business needs. You’ll work across platforms, contribute to architectural decisions and advance engineering practices within the growing portfolio.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering full-stack production applications.
• Strong API design and data modelling skills.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and security fundamentals.
• Proficiency with AI-assisted development and evaluating model outputs.
• Ability to work with evolving requirements and stakeholder communication.
• Collaborative approach to code reviews and engineering standards.

Responsibilities

• Lead features and improvements from discovery and solution design through to deployment and ongoing support.
• Turn business needs into clear requirements, practical technical designs and accessible products.
• Build and maintain full-stack applications, including web interfaces, APIs, databases and background services.
• Develop reliable data pipelines and integrations with external platforms.
• Integrate AI models into product workflows, considering output quality, cost and privacy.
• Design secure authentication, permissions and data boundaries for cross-team products.
• Improve automated testing, observability and deployment processes.
• Investigate and resolve complex issues across applications, infrastructure and third-party integrations.
• Document important decisions and share knowledge for team-wide maintenance.

Skills

Full-stack development

APIs

Cloud infrastructure

AI-assisted development

Code reviews

Security best practices

Collaboration

Tools

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Node.js

Google Cloud

Terraform

Job description

Founded in 2012, LADbible Group is redefining entertainment and news for a social generation. Our global community engages with our content–spanning editorial, video, documentary and live – we reach 1 billion people each and every month. Our mission is to give the youth generation a voice by building communities that laugh, think and act.Using all major platforms, we’ve rapidly risen to become one of the world's largest publishers.

About the opportunity

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.

How we work with AI

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.

What you’ll do

• 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.

What you’ll bring

• Strong experience designing, delivering and supporting full‑stack production applications.
• Sound engineering judgement across architecture, APIs, data modelling, security and cloud infrastructure.
• Practical experience using AI‑assisted development tools for substantial engineering work, including reviewing, testing, debugging and correcting generated code.
• Experience integrating generative AI or large language models into applications, alongside an understanding of their limitations and how to evaluate output quality.
• The ability to diagnose complex problems, work effectively across unfamiliar systems and make well‑reasoned technical trade‑offs.
• A pragmatic approach to balancing delivery speed with security, reliability and maintainability.
• Confidence working with evolving requirements, taking ownership and communicating clearly with both technical and non‑technical colleagues.
• A collaborative approach to reviewing work, sharing knowledge and improving engineering practices.

Relevant technical experience

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.

At LADbible Group we've rolled out blended working which means the majority of departments across the business (including London, Manchester and International offices) work in the office 4 days per week.

LADbible Group is an equal opportunities employer. We are determined to create a diverse group at all levels of our company and we welcome all members of the community to apply for openings with us. As the leading social youth publisher, we have a powerful global platform to better represent our audience and enable those that do not have equal opportunities to have their voices heard. As a business, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workforce, in an environment where everyone feels comfortable to be themselves.