Senior Software Engineer - DevOps

BBC; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 67,000 - 82,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Learning opportunities

Supportive engineering community

Job summary

BBC in London is seeking a Senior Engineer to architect, design and develop core cloud and network systems for observability and alerting platforms, migrating to a modern open-source stack.

You will work across AWS services, implement automation, IaC and CI/CD, mentor engineers, and help shape the future monitoring roadmap in a collaborative, learning-focused environment.

The role offers flexible working discussions and an opportunity to impact millions of users.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience with AWS and large-scale infrastructure.
• Proficiency in Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation or AWS CDK.
• Strong scripting in Python and Bash.
• Hands-on with Prometheus, Grafana, Mimir and Telegraf.
• Experience using Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD tooling.

Responsibilities

• Architect and scale highly available cloud infrastructure using automation.
• Lead design and development of observability platforms.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to meet business needs.
• Mentor junior engineers and promote best practices.
• Drive automation, IaC and SDLC improvements.
• Participate in on-call rotation and incident response.

Skills

Git / GitHub

Atlassian Tools

Telegraf

InfluxDB

Consul

LibreNMS

Docker

Kubernetes

Jenkins

Database (Relational & Time series)

Python

Bash/Shell

AWS

EC2

Load Balancing

Lambda

SQS

SNS

S3

RDS

CloudWatch

Route 53

Terraform

Ansible

CloudFormation

AWS CDK

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

Grafana

Prometheus

Mimir

Alloy

Telegraf

InfluxDB

LibreNMS

Docker

Kubernetes

Jenkins

Terraform

Ansible

Job description

JOB BAND: D
CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent - Full Time
DEPARTMENT: Media Tech
LOCATION: London and UK Wide - Hybrid
PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: Up to £74,338 depending on relevant skills, knowledge, and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The BBC’s future depends on delivering seamless, 24/7 online services without disruptions. We build business-critical, highly available observability and alerting platforms for massive-scale performance tracking and corrective automation. We are migrating legacy influx systems to a modern open-source stack (Mimir, Prometheus, Alerta, Alloy, Grafana, LibreNMS) and integrating Loki and Tempo. As a Senior Engineer, you will architect, design, and develop these core cloud and network systems, underpinning our audience products and so directly preventing outages for millions of users.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

Join an innovative, tight-knit team where your growth matters. You will collaborate across the BBC to shape our future observability roadmap, engineering critical high-scale services using AWS. This role offers total freedom to pitch ideas, innovate at a massive scale, and define our future enterprise monitoring ecosystem. Beyond delivering high-impact platforms, you will enjoy tailored learning opportunities to develop your skills alongside a supportive community of experienced engineers and our internal Academy ensuring currency in a rapidly evolving technical landscape.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

• Architect and scale robust, highly available, and user-focused infrastructure using cloud services and automation as well as lead the design and development of software that meets complex product and business needs which includes integrating monitoring and support tools.
• Be able to think out of the box and proactively diagnose and resolve operational issues whether triggered by system alerts or raised by stakeholders, contribute to team rituals and participate in a supportive agile on-call rotation.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements to ensure platforms scale effectively and meet business demands as well as product and operational teams to ensure services are suitable and supportable.
• Own engineering quality by driving continuous improvement in engineering practices and processes such as appropriate tests using automated test-driven techniques, daily best practices, code reviews, enhancing workflows and processes and solid SDLC processes bringing a focus to automation, infrastructure as code, and operations.
• Guide the team’s long-term technical strategy and plan future observability roadmaps.
• Mentor and support junior team members to accelerate their professional learning and growth in current and new technologies

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE – KEY CRITERIA

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA

• While you do not need expertise in everything listed, expertise in some, familiarity with several and a willingness to learn is key:
  • Tools and Services: Git / GitHub, Atlassian Tools, Telegraf, InfluxDB, Consul, LibreNMS, Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, Full stack: Database (Relational & Time series), Web / HTTP, backend
  • Strong experience in Alerta, Grafana, Prometheus, Mimir, Alloy, Jenkins
  • Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Ansible, CloudFormation, AWS CDK
  • Strong experience in Programming / Scripting Languages: Python, Bash/Shell.
  • Strong production experience in AWS and Cloud: EC2, Load Balancing, Lambda, SQS, SNS, S3, RDS, CloudWatch, Route 53.
• Knowledge of system metrics and their impact on availability and performance.
• Experience with Linux Operating Systems (e.g. RedHat, CentOS, Rocky, Amazon Linux).
• Understanding of CI/CD practices and large-scale infrastructure design and support.

DESIRABLE CRITERIA

• Experience of high throughput metric ingestion at scale and distributed metrics storage / clustering
• Optional Network aspects such as HTTP, TLS, DNS, SNMP
• Working in an Agile development environment
• Enjoy collaborating in cross-functional teams and being comfortable asking questions, seeking feedback, and learning from others.

If you are experienced in some of these areas and eager to grow your expertise in others, we would love to hear from you!

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Recruitment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

Redeployment

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

Information at a Glance

This is your BBC

At the BBC you can create and innovate in an inclusive environment while contributing to some of the world’s best loved content, and the BBC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain.

Find out more about the BBC

Life at BBC

Here you will benefit from:

• Fair pay and flexible benefits including a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pensionscheme and discounted dental, health care and gym.
• Excellent career and professional development.
• Support in your working life, including flexible working which you can discuss with us at any point during the application, selection or offer.
• A values-based organisation where the way we do things is important as what we do.

Benefits may vary if you are joining on an FTC basis or on an orchestra conditions contract.

Learn more about life at the BBC and our values in our candidate pack.

Candidate pack

You belong

We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, so all our employees feel that they can belong, thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to join us. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief.

Find out more about diversity, inclusion and belonging in our strategy below.

Diversity, inclusion & belonging strategy

Disability confident

We are a disability confident employer. If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process, or to carry out this role, please contact us via email and we’d be happy to discuss: [e-mail]

BBC Group and Public Services, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, United Kingdom, W1A 1AA. BBC Studios Distribution Limited, company no: 01420028, registered address: 1 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London, United Kingdom W12 7FA.