Software Engineer

APOLITICAL; London; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Apolitical seeks a Full Stack Engineer to enhance user-facing features using TypeScript, React/Next.js, and Node/NestJS. Join a dynamic, supportive team that values clean code and rapid feature delivery. Engage in meaningful mentorship and contribute to a varied tech ecosystem, strengthening solutions for public servants.

Qualifications

• Experience building production-grade React/NestJS systems.
• Familiarity with mono-repo or Nx/PNPM tooling.
• Understanding of high-quality codebase metrics.

Responsibilities

• Build and test new product features across frontend and backend.
• Participate in architectural discussions and squad rituals.
• Mentor other engineers and improve engagement in team processes.

Skills

TypeScript

React/Next.js

Node/NestJS

Clean code

Team collaboration

Job description

Overview

• Start date: ASAP

• Reporting to: Staff or Senior engineer in one of our product squads.

• Visa sponsorship: Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants should have the right to work in the UK at the time of application.

• Background checks: Due to the nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history and right to work.

• You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by: 3rd July 2025

• Salary expectations: We aim for transparency on salary bands. If our range is misaligned with your expectations, we’d welcome an open conversation as early as possible.

Role

You’ll join one of our cross-functional product squads as a Full Stack Engineer, working on user-facing features end-to-end using TypeScript, React/Next.js and Node/NestJS. You’ll pair with senior engineers, contribute meaningfully from day one, and grow towards becoming a domain owner.

This role strengthens our ability to ship features rapidly and reliably to public servants and policymakers. Success is measured by your ability to:

• Contribute production-quality code across the stack.

• Help your squad ship well-tested, maintainable features on schedule.

• Improve team velocity by reducing handoff friction and increasing ownership.

Tasks and remit

You’ll work in a feature squad, alongside 2–3 senior engineers, a PM and a designer. Day-to-day, you'll:

• Build and test new product features (both frontend and backend).

• Participate in squad ceremonies and architectural discussions.

• Refactor, maintain and document shared components and services.

• Be mentored and mentor others – this is a two-way learning environment.

This role is exciting if you’re eager to grow technically and professionally in a supportive, pragmatic team. You’ll be empowered to own code, propose improvements and understand how your work impacts our users.

You will be:

• Writing TypeScript across the stack

• Building APIs, UI components and end-to-end tests

• Learning from senior engineers and shaping our engineering practices

You won’t be:

• Managing people

Role expectations

Timelines may vary depending on individual onboarding and support needs, but we expect most team members to achieve the following milestones:

Within one month, you will…

• Ship a non-trivial PR to production with guidance.

• Pass all dev-environment setup, CI, and test suite hurdles.

• Join squad rituals and build context on our products and tech stack.

Within three months, you will…

• Own and deliver scoped features independently.

• Collaborate closely with designers and PMs on UX delivery.

• Contribute to team retros and identify ways to improve squad flow.

Within six months, you will…

• Be a go-to person for part of our system (e.g. a module or feature).

• Mentor newer engineers or interns.

• Propose and lead a technical improvement (e.g. test coverage, DX).

About you

This is a great fit if you…

• Enjoy being hands-on with a focus on writing clean, scalable code.

• Relish the fast pace and exploratory nature of a startup environment.

• Like working full-stack and improving at both ends.

• Want to be part of building a strong, kind engineering culture.

• Are comfortable receiving feedback and keen to grow quickly.

Let us know if you have…

• Built or maintained production-grade React/NestJS systems.

• Worked in a mono-repo or on Nx/PNPM tooling.

• Contributed to a high-quality codebase (test coverage, type-safety, linting).

• Worked on teams with accessibility or localisation goals.

• Have experience and/or interest in system security.

This likely won’t be the right role if you…

• Need extensive structure or a narrow, fixed role.

• Are not flexible with regards to working on frontend vs. backend.

• Are looking for big-tech company, fixed processes, or large teams.

• Have a minimal interest in coding to high production standards.

• Minimal interest in team collaboration and knowledge sharing.

• Prefer novelty over practicality in technical decision making.

Don’t meet every single expectation? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. Apolitical is dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Application

The Applied platform asks some demographic questions before you start your application. No one at Apolitical sees the answers to these demographic questions with your application. We only see summary statistics to help us check if our candidate pool is balanced and if everyone has an equal chance to get hired irrespective of their background. If you prefer, you can easily opt out of answering these questions.