Software Engineer (Web Developer) at BBC World Service

The BBC is an international multimedia broadcaster on radio, TV, online and social networks with a weekly global audience of 320 million. As part of an historic multi-million pound expansion of BBC Africa, the BBC World Service is introducing a wide range of new and exciting language and regional content to serve African and global audiences.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Software Engineer (Web Developer)

Job Reference: BBC/TP/653414/51628
Location: Lagos Hub
Job family: Technical Systems & Delivery
Grade: Local terms and conditions
Department: (Africa) Hub
Reports to: Senior Broadcast Journalist Digital, (Nairobi) Hub
Contract Type: Fixed term
Business Unit: News – W2020 Africa
Job Category: Technology, Systems & Delivery

Job Purpose

• Responsible for implementing effective software and tools for given designs.

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities

• Develop effective software that meets given specifications
• Write appropriate tests using automated test-driven techniques for ensure code quality
• Integrate the software with monitoring and support tools
• Support system integration in its operating environment
• Write and review technical documentation
• Help to troubleshoot and resolve issues throughout the product life cycle
• Participate in the team’s agile planning and delivery process
• Effectively participate in the teams software development methodologies, such as pairing, code and documentation reviewing and continuous delivery
• Learn new technologies and keep abreast of existing technologies.

Knowledge, Skills, Training and Experience
Essential:

• Demonstrable experience writing and maintaining robust production software
• Competence in one or more mainstream development languages and frameworks
• Competence with one or more mainstream development and deployment tool chains (IDE, SCCS, CI)
• Experience of database design and use in software applications
• Knowledge of the web architecture and key technologies (HTTP, DNS, distributed design)
• Competence test driven development
• Competence in developing for operational concerns (monitoring integration, performance testing, security considerations)
• Experience of project working and professional software development processes, including agile.

Desirable:

• Worked in an enterprise environment on several projects (including experience in testing, design and release)
• Experience of releasing their software to a production use case
• Participated in reviews and inspections of code (sat with a peer or someone more senior reviewing your code)
• Software Engineering or Computer Science Degree or equivalent.

Job Impact
Decision Making:

• Reports to Principal Software Engineer or Software Engineering Manager
• Tasks are allocated to the job holder by the team lead
• Undertakes tasks independently
• Independently writes tests to check quality of code
• Assesses feedback from reviews and incorporates as appropriate
• Troubleshoots independently or with the support of others where necessary
• Contributes to the teams iterative and collaborative design and implementation decisions.

Scope:

• Finance: No financial responsibility
• Line Management: No line management responsibility
• Ad-hoc Teams: Participates in departmental hack days and external ad-hoc events (typically 5 to 20 members)

Additional Job-specific Responsibilities and Accountabilities
Key Responsibilities:

• Work collaboratively in a multidisciplinary team and to proactively shepherd new features to live.
• To write world class HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• To write server side code (mainly NodeJS, experience of Ruby/PHP desired)
• To work to current good software development practices.
• To write unit and integration tests using automated test frameworks.
• To work well in a team context according to the team’s shared practices.

Essential Attributes:

• Excellent front-end web development skills:
  • HTML. Semantic markup patterns for flexible reuse and accessibility.
  • CSS. Good understanding of modern techniques such as Responsive Web Design, recent CSS advances such as flexbox but also supporting legacy browsers.
  • JAVASCRIPT. Excellent JavaScript programming skills, with knowledge of developing large, modular applications. Ability to write in ES6, and an appreciation of backwards-compatible / cross-browser JavaScript.
  • BUILDING ROBUST EXPERIENCES. Using progressive enhancement and mobile first approaches to create experiences that work everywhere and for everyone.
• Accessibility – support all browsers with core content, ensure compliance with screen readers, in accordance with WAI standards, etc
• Great understanding of UX concerns. We want smart devs who can provide valuable feedback to designers to improve wireframes and designs.
• Ability to create production ready code with tests in one of: PHP, Ruby, Python or NodeJS (training will be provided if you don’t know PHP or NodeJS).
• Understanding of Service Oriented Architectures and consuming RESTful web services via HTTP.
• Experience of working in an agile or collaborative way.
• Familiarity in using GitHub workflows
• A level of familiarity with AWS or similar Cloud Infrastructure and associated tooling.

A Big Plus Would Be:

• An enthusiasm for News.
• Healthy interest in emerging platform level technologies – queues, microservices, caches etc.
• Understanding of CI, experience with using a CI system (Hudson, Jenkins).
• Knowledge of strategies to improve performance (HTTP caching, language best practices).

Application Closing Date
24th January, 2021.