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ROLE: Senior Principal Software Engineer

DEPARTMENT: Web

JOB BAND: E

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time

LOCATION: Salford, Glasgow, London, Newcastle, Cardiff. This is a hybrid role and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working.

Job Intro

We want the BBC to be as renowned for the quality of its engineering as it is for the quality of its content. We aspire to be the best so that we can engineer outstanding digital products, at scale. Working here in an engineering role means being part of a world-class team and a chance to do the most meaningful work of your career.

Product Group now has an area called “Web” that focuses on the entirety of the BBC’s website. For the first time, we are introducing a Senior Principal Software Engineer role into the Web area. This unique role will work across the broad range of web teams, help identify and deliver engineering opportunities, and drive technical excellence in how we make the BBC website even more successful. The role will work closely with engineering and architecture leadership, as well as other disciplines, to collaborate on opportunities that drive growth. Millions of people around the world use our website daily; and we have ambitions to significantly grow this further.

As the ideal candidate, you’ll have strong experience working with large engineering teams, excellent communication and collaboration skills, and be very comfortable working with web technologies such as React, TypeScript, and CSS, as well as broader technology landscapes like networking, cloud, and accessibility. You’ll have a thirst for new opportunities like AI, while understanding operational and safety needs of a large organization. You’ll be a self-starter, proactive in seeking opportunities and collaborating to achieve great outcomes.

Main Responsibilities

This role is an Individual Contributor (IC) position and does not include line management responsibilities.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Being a role model for engineering culture - embodying values such as quality, collaboration, curiosity, inclusion, and pace. This includes mentoring senior/principal engineers.
• Working closely with engineering teams, particularly the principal engineer community, to promote best practices and build inclusive, strong teams.
• Sharing best-practice knowledge across all six web groups, fostering collaboration and consistency.
• Supporting the successful operation of our website, e.g., acting as Incident Commander during major incidents or diagnosing critical issues.
• Supporting critical projects, such as a General Election, as needed.
• Partnering with other disciplines to solve complex challenges and leverage engineering strengths and opportunities.
• Being part of a Senior Principal Software Engineer community to uphold world-class standards across the Product Group.

Additionally, you will focus on innovation and engineering velocity to make our Web engineering teams faster and more efficient in creating new value. This includes:

• AI - exploring practical, technological, and cultural changes to effectively utilize AI in engineering and testing, evaluating solutions like GitHub Co-Pilot, and championing best practices.
• Prototyping - adopting approaches for rapid prototyping to collaborate on product discovery with product and UX teams.
• Experimentation - enabling multiple experiments to run safely simultaneously, using tools like sandboxes, shared libraries, and lightweight test frameworks.

• Test - supporting test and engineering teams to improve automation, CI/CD efficiency, and AI integration for testing.

Are you the right candidate?

The ideal candidate will have:

• Extensive experience as a lead/staff/principal software engineer or similar, with impactful contributions across multiple teams or domains.
• Deep expertise in modern web technologies (e.g., React, TypeScript, Node.js, CSS) and experience working on large-scale, high-availability web platforms.
• A collaborative and empowering leadership style, with mentoring and stakeholder influence skills.
• Excellent communication skills, capable of simplifying complex topics for diverse audiences.
• Ability to balance technical depth with strategic thinking, working on architecture and hands-on issues.
• A passion for engineering craft and innovation, exploring new technologies like AI, edge computing, and performance tools.
• A user-focused mindset, prioritizing accessibility, performance, and inclusivity.
• Experience working in a matrixed or cross-functional environment, building coalitions across different teams.

About the BBC

The BBC prioritizes redeployment for employees seeking alternative roles internally. We value how we do things as much as what we do, emphasizing our values and behaviors. Read about our values here.

We promote diversity and respect individual contributions, enabling all employees to thrive and reach their potential. We seek a broad range of talented individuals to reflect our diverse audiences.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion, or belief. Flexible working requests will be considered unless operationally restricted.

Learn more about our Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC.

Disclaimer

This role description outlines the essential characteristics and principal responsibilities, including required skills, knowledge, and experience. It is not exhaustive of all duties involved. The BBC will conduct employment screening, including reference, eligibility, safeguarding, and social media checks, as applicable. Offers are conditional on satisfactory checks.