Principal Backend Engineer

Job title:

Principal Backend Engineer

Company:

British Council

Job description

We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide.We work directly with individuals to help them gain the skills, confidence and connections to transform their lives and shape a better world in partnership with the UK. We support them to build networks and explore creative ideas, to learn English, to get a high-quality education and to gain internationally recognised qualifications.Working with people in over 200 countries and territories, we are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2021-22 we reached 650 million people.Location: Warsaw
Department: Digital Operations
Contract type: Indefinite (permanent)
Closing Date: 7th October 2024 at 23:59 COL Time (6:00 UK Time)Some of our benefits are:

• Enjoy a standard workday of 7.45 hours and a weekly total of 38.75 hours, allowing for a healthy work-life balance.
• Benefit from additional holidays, including a minimum of 35 days of annual leave per year, which includes public holidays. Our holiday calendar is meticulously crafted based on the public holiday lists for Poland, Belgium, and adheres to the British Council policy.
• Stay active and healthy with our Corporate Sports Card – MultiSport Light 10, which is partially funded by our Social Fund (ZFŚS).
• Avail significant discounts on our English courses and exams for both you and your immediate family members.
• Take advantage of various financial grants and holiday refunds through our Social Fund (ZFŚS), which offers both random and social assistance.
• Access our Employee Assistance Programme, providing confidential psychological support services to ensure your overall wellbeing.
• Explore diverse avenues for professional development and career advancement within our organizational structure.

You must have the legal right to work in Poland at the time of application.There is no relocation or sponsorship support.British Council supports working in new ways such as hybrid working, subject to full approval by line management and conditional upon our ability to provide the appropriate level of service.
This may not be appropriate for all roles but can be explored at interview.Role purposeAs a Principal Backend Engineer, you occupy a critical position that bridges senior leadership with hands-on practitioners in your discipline. You are expected to nurture a robust community of practice, setting a high standard for expertise, and creating a conducive environment for learning, growth, and excellence. Your role extends beyond individual projects, influencing the broader organisational strategy within your discipline, sharing knowledge, and ensuring that best practices are adopted and adhered to across all levels.You will drive the development and maintenance of robust, scalable, and efficient systems to meet the needs of a range of British Council products and services accessed globally.Role ContextThe role will be part of the Digital and Technology Directorate, which leads the British Council’s digital strategy and transformation. It creates and executes technology initiatives to fulfil the organisation’s mission and corporate priorities.Key focus areas are:

• Creating digital products that attract and retain customers, delivering business value through digital design and delivery expertise.
• Developing and optimising digital platforms that provide seamless customer interactions and use scalable and secure capabilities.
• Enhancing digital capability across the organisation.
• Enabling growth, impact and efficiency through technology.

Accountabilities/Responsibilities:

• Lead and nurture the Backend engineering team, guiding, and mentoring engineers to achieve their professional growth and their team’s objectives.
• Contribute to the development and management of budgets for engineering projects, ensuring efficient allocation of resources. Proactively identify opportunities for cost optimisation and efficiency improvements in systems while balancing business needs and quality standards.
• Devise, promote and oversee robust and high-quality coding.
• Product/Programme/Service Delivery
• Understand and collaborate to determine whole system design, sharing your insight with the team and stakeholders. Provide technical advice to stakeholders and agree team-based standards for programming tools and techniques.
• Assure the application of standards and methods to ensure compliance and maintain Backend technical responsibility for all the stages and iterations of a software development project.
• Collaborate with product managers and other stakeholders to define and prioritise Backend engineering requirements for product development. Support your team in the technical design and implementation of scalable and reliable Backend systems to support product/service delivery.
• Customers & Stakeholders
• Engage with key stakeholders and business partners to understand any Backend engineering needs to be developed through the engineering community.
• Build strong relationships and maintain effective communication channels with stakeholders, guiding alignment and satisfaction with Backend engineering initiatives.
• Identify potential risks and vulnerabilities in Backend systems and implement appropriate security measures to mitigate them.
• Promote and assure compliance with industry standards, regulations, and data privacy requirements in the design and implementation of Backend solutions.
• Oversee and assure the implementation and maintenance of robust monitoring and logging mechanisms to detect and respond to potential security breaches or compliance issues.
• Develop and maintain analytics and reporting capabilities for Backend systems, providing insights on performance, usage patterns, and user behaviour.
• Generate regular reports and presentations to communicate Backend engineering performance and progress.

Requirements of the role:

• Proven skill in leading and nurturing a global community of practice, providing strategic leadership, mentoring, and guidance across diverse functions, to foster innovation and excellence in delivering user-centric solutions in a collaborative environment.
• Demonstrable senior level experience in Backend engineering, with a focus on designing and implementing scalable and high-performance systems.
• Strong proficiency in programming languages such as .Net, C#, PHP, NodeJS, Python, and experience with Backend frameworks (e.g., ASP, Symfony, Express, Django).
• Deep understanding of distributed system concepts, cloud architectures (e.g., AWS, Azure), and microservices architecture.
• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, data modelling, and query optimization.
• Solid knowledge of RESTful and GraphQL APIs, message queues, caching mechanisms, and other Backend technologies.
• Experience leading a team.
• Expertise in end-to-end unit and integration testing (e.g., Cypress, Jest and Playwright)
• Strong prototyping skills · Understanding of security best practices, authentication, and authorisation protocols (e.g., OAuth, JWT).
• Strong experience in resource allocation and management, and component optimisation.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Skilled in agile development (Scrum/Kanban), software patterns, test and behaviour driven development and version control.
• Strong knowledge of containerization and orchestration platforms (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and related technologies.
• Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Github Actions, CircleCI, Azure/AWS pipelines, Terraform, Ansible).
• Written and verbal proficiency (CEF 1) in English is required.
• Strong foundation in computer science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, and software design principles.
• Continuous learning through online courses, workshops, and industry conferences to stay updated with emerging technologies and best practices in Backend development.

A connected and trusted UK in a more connected and trusted world.Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) StatementThe British Council is committed to policies and practices of equality, diversity and inclusion across everything we do. We support all staff to make sure their behaviour is consistent with this commitment. We want to address under representation and encourage applicants from under-represented groups, in particular, but not exclusively, on grounds of ethnicity and disability. All disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria are guaranteed an interview and we have Disability Confident Employer Status. We welcome discussions about specific requirements or adjustments to enable participation and engagement in our work and activities.The British Council is committed to safeguarding children, young people and adults who we work with.We believe that all children and adults everywhere in the world deserve to live in safe environments and have the right to be protected from all forms of abuse, maltreatment and exploitation as set out in article 19, UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) 1989.Appointment to positions where there is direct involvement with vulnerable groups will be dependent on thorough checks being completed; these will include qualification checks, reference checks, identity & criminal record checks in line with legal requirements and with the British Council’s Safeguarding policies for Adults and Children.If you have any problems with your application please emailPlease note: Applications to this role can only be considered when made through the Apply section of our careers website. Our ‘ASK HR’ email is only to be used in case of a technical issue encountered when applying through the careers website. Emails with supporting statements and CV/Resumes sent to this email address will not be reviewed and will be deleted.

Expected salary

Location

Warszawa, mazowieckie

Job date

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 06:36:18 GMT

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