Software Architect

We are looking for a hands-on Software Architect to define, design, and help deliver a next-generation video content automation, scheduling and distribution platform used across our portfolio of 130+ YouTube channels. As the Software Architect, you will split your time between technical leadership (50%) - architecture, standards, planning, direction - and contributing code (50%) across backend services, automations, pipelines, and UI components. This will include working closely with the Product Owner, end-users, and stakeholders across the business to translate complex operational workflows into scalable technical solutions. You will also directly manage a blend of onshore and offshore developers, ensuring clarity of tasks, code quality, and delivery velocity.

This is a strategic and highly technical role with real ownership and visible impact on the operations of the company. The ideal candidate will demonstrate a range of different skill sets to compliment this as we move through our strategic technology roadmap, such as hands-on engineering, stakeholder engagement, leadership experience, and delivery management.

PERKS OF THE JOB

We are proud to be an award winning, B Corp Certified workplace with employee wellbeing at the heart of everything we do. We offer hybrid and flexi-time working, mental health and wellbeing programmes, enhanced gender neutral parental leave, interest free financial support and a digital nomad policy that allows you to work from abroad in two one week blocks a year. Plus all the usuals such as pension contributions, annual leave and office perks like free lunches, socials, and health treatments!

HOW YOU'LL SPEND YOUR TIME

Architecture & Technical Direction

• Defining the system architecture for our products, focussing on our scheduling and automation platform, spanning backend services, data pipelines, APIs, and UI layers.
• Setting technical standards for code quality, security, observability, CI/CD, and cloud deployment.
• Building and maintaining the architectural roadmap, ensuring scalability to >500 video uploads/week and multi-channel automation workflows.
• Driving decisions on storage models, event flows, orchestration, API boundaries, and data schemas.
• Owning the technical implementation strategy for GCP-based components (BigQuery, Firestore, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Composer/Airflow).
• Designing frameworks for automation, title processing, workflow orchestration, and validation pipelines.

Hands-On Engineering

• Contributing production-grade code inPython, TypeScript/React, and GCP environments.
• Building backend services (Cloud Run / Cloud Functions), data pipelines, scheduling engines, and workflow automations.
• Implementing UI components in React/Next.js for dashboards, scheduling calendars, and admin tooling.
• Optimising end-to-end performance of scheduling algorithms, metadata extraction flows, and content management workflows.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Collaborating with channel managers, editors, rights teams, and operations stakeholders to understand real-world constraints.
• Participating in user interviews and feedback loops to validate product assumptions.
• Communicating technical trade-offs and prioritisation clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Supporting PM in roadmap planning, phased delivery, and discovery cycles.

Leadership & Delivery Management

• Working with the Director of Data, Tech & Product (DTP) and Partnerships Manager to define the backlog, scope projects, and break work into clear deliverables.
• Leading daily engineering operations across onshore and offshore teams, ensuring productivity and alignment.
• Reviewing and approving architecture proposals, pull requests, and system changes.
• Mentoring mid-level developers, setting standards, and supporting their technical growth.
• Helping to coordinate QA and release processes, ensuring stable, safe rollouts.

Skills matter, experience is useful, attitude is everything.

• Demonstrable experience of software engineering, including experience in senior or architect-level roles.
• Strong hands-on experience with Python, including building production APIs and async workflows.
• Solid experience with React / TypeScript for admin UIs and dashboards.
• Deep understanding of GCP, including: BigQuery, Firestore, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub, Cloud Functions / Cloud Run, IAM & service accounts
• Experience designing and scaling distributed systems, workflow engines, or scheduling/pipeline software.
• Strong SQL and data modelling skills, ideally with analytics and ETL familiarity.
• Demonstrated experience managing and coordinating offshore and onshore development teams.
• Ability to balance technical excellence with pragmatic delivery., * Experience with media platforms, digital content pipelines, or YouTube CMS / YouTube API.
• Familiarity with ML/AI classification, embeddings, transcript-based tagging, or automation-first workflows.
• Exposure to Airflow / Dagster / Prefect for orchestration.
• Experience with high-throughput scheduling or rules engines.

We're probably the biggest studio you didn't know was fuelling your favourite content. We've been one of the top dogs in the digital content space since 2013 (some would say, before its potential was even fully realised). We're proud to work with some of the hottest TV and movie studios, distributors, rights holders, sports federations and brands in the business.