Job Description

Software Engineering
Fixed Term - Full Time
London, GB, W1A 1AA
BBC PUBLIC SERVICE B'CAST
Job Closing Date: 15/05/2025

THE ROLE

------------

Job Purpose

---------------

Job Reference:

23518

Band:

D

Salary:

54,000 to 56,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

Contract type:

Fixed Term Contract (12 months)

Location:

London (London Broadcasting House. This is a hybrid role, and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working)



We're happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

Excellent career progression

- the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.

Unrivalled training and development opportunities

- our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.

Benefits

- We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym. You can find out more about working at the BBC by selecting this link to our candidate pack.




If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process please contact the reasonable.adjustments@bbc.co.uk. For any general queries, please contact: bbchr@bbc.co.uk.

Job Introduction

--------------------



The BBC is one of the UK's most well-known and loved brands. BBC Sounds and iPlayer are renowned and loved throughout the UK and the world. The BBC is a household name which delivers online content to more than 25 million people globally, and we are proud to say that we help make that magic happen!




The Sounds and iPlayer teams are conceiving the next generation of features for our audiences. Our mission is to secure the Internet future of the BBC. RMS (Radio Music Services) is the backend team responsible for building the APIs that power Sounds' clients. It is an exciting time to join RMS because Sounds aims to become the number one online audio service in the UK. The BBC is a place where your work impacts millions of users daily across our products, outputting 40 million hours of content.




This role is a rare opportunity to work on software at scale. It is a full-time twelve-month contract position to backfill a colleague attached to another team temporarily. We're looking for a passionate senior Software Engineer in Test to join our fast-paced cross-discipline agile teams iterating on our key products.




We provide you with a great work-life balance and a competitive work package. There are also great opportunities to grow your career within the team or the wider organisation. As part of BBC Sounds and iPlayer, you will be at the heart of the Internet first BBC. We have an internal Academy department to ensure you have the training needed to advance in your career from soft skills to technical training such as AWS, cloud architecture and micro-services, to name a few.

Interview Process

---------------------



Thirty minute remote chat to determine candidate's suitability for the role Take home test automation exercise, expected back after five working days Virtual interview - approx. one and half hour of technical and values-based questions. The candidate would take the panel through their exercise (share screen)

Main Responsibilities

-------------------------



Working in a scrum team, you will implement and maintain BDD automation using Java, Cucumber and RestAssured for API features. You will work with your peers to plan, define, and run tests for API releases. You will also run manual tests where automation does not exist. You will run load tests.




Exploratory testing is an important practice on RMS. The test team devices test charters, organises test sessions and shares its findings with our stakeholders. The role will provide you the opportunity to develop your exploratory testing skills.




You will improve our automation code by working with the rest of the team on code refactors, automation analysis and pipeline improvement.




The ability to report test concerns and issues promptly is a quality we admire. On RMS, we expect members of the test team to communicate findings and risks to stakeholders in a clear and concise manner that boosts confidence in our test processes.




As a senior you should expect to mentor and coach junior members of the team by supporting them technically, for example, helping them to structure code, reviewing code and advising on best practices.




You will collaborate with other Sounds Testers on projects that span the Sounds product, writing plans and supporting high profile product-wide releases like new radio stations, for example.




We would look for you to be an active participant in fostering a learning culture throughout the organisation through active dissemination of knowledge and collaboration with other members of the test organisation.




If you're passionate about software quality, enjoy thinking outside the box and want to work in a high-performing team doing complex and critical work, then we should talk!

Are you the right candidate

-------------------------------



We focus on hiring for potential at the BBC, so the main requirement for the position is a strong testing mindset.




Some of the things we love:


Experience of developing automated acceptance tests for APIs in Java Developing tests using BDD, Gherkin techniques Experience of using GitHub or a similar tool Experience of working on an agile team, preferably using scrum Mentoring and coaching junior colleagues on technical solutions Effort estimation, planning, prioritisation, and time management on an agile team Using Jira or a similar tool Manual and exploratory testing of APIs Some experience or exposure to load testing Automation code refactoring experience Developing exploratory testing charters and sharing results of said testing Learning new software skills and working with new technologies


Other Desirable Skills & Experience

CI/CD experience Experience of co-operating with a client or front-end team Jenkins or AWS CodePipeline exposure AWS and AWS tools Deployment experience - into test or live environments

About the BBC

-----------------



The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons 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.




We don't focus simply on what we do - we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you've read about our values and behaviours here.




Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.




We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC - whether that's to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.




We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.




To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.

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.