Senior Software Engineer, BBC Verify

British Broadcasting Corporation; London; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player seeks a Senior Data Scientist to join a dynamic team focused on harnessing satellite data for impactful news coverage. This role involves using advanced programming skills in R and Python to automate data analysis processes, enabling faster story discovery and compelling storytelling. The successful candidate will collaborate with a multidisciplinary team, contributing to innovative projects that leverage open-source intelligence to address significant issues. Join a forward-thinking organization that values diversity and offers excellent career progression and training opportunities in a supportive environment.

Benefits

Flexible working hours

25 days annual leave

Defined pension scheme

Discounted health care

Training and development opportunities

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in satellite data analysis and programming.
• Strong communication skills to work with non-technical colleagues.

Responsibilities

• Ingest, analyze, and explain satellite data for news stories.
• Develop automated tools to enhance story-finding capabilities.

Skills

Satellite Data Analysis

Programming in R

Programming in Python

Data Cleaning and Transformation

Communication Skills

Storytelling from Data

Job description

Senior Data Scientist (Senior Software Engineer), BBC Verify

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Package Description
Job Reference: 20803
Band: D
Salary: Up to £70,000 plus London weighting depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
Contract type: Permanent
Location: London - Hybrid
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 negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym.

If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the [e-mail]. For any general queries, please contact: [e-mail].

Job Introduction

BBC Verify brings together open-source intelligence (OSINT) specialists, disinformation reporters, fact checkers and data journalists to find impactful stories and to offer new lines and compelling coverage of the biggest issues across BBC News’s website, social media, television and radio. The successful candidate will work alongside three other data scientists, using their computing skills to multiply the story-finding and story-telling capacity of BBC Verify.

Main Responsibilities

This is a role for a data scientist, programmer, or a mix of both who specialises in ingesting, analysing and explaining satellite data and who can work effectively in news as part of a multidisciplinary team. Their computing skills will enable the team to find new stories, to pick which story ideas to follow and to find stories faster from satellite imagery, APIs.

Examples Of Recent Projects Include

• Automating steps in the collection and presentation of satellite imagery in order to speed the assessment of damage in military conflict.

The Successful Candidate Must Have

• Extensive experience finding newsworthy insights in a broad range of satellite data sources.
• Extensive experience developing automated tools that have the potential to find stories in satellite data.
• Experience of embedding the latest research practices/techniques relating to use of satellite data in non-expert groups.
• Extensive experience programming in R and/or Python to automate the extraction, cleaning, transformation and analysis of satellite data.
• An understanding of delivering stories or projects with editorial content to tight deadlines.
• Experience identifying, proposing and delivering new ideas for analysis OR improvements to workflows based on technical skills and understanding of the organisation’s needs.
• The communication skills to work with non-technical colleagues to identify the technical strengths and weaknesses of story ideas and to explain analysis findings and caveats clearly and concisely.

About The BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. 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 here. 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.