Senior Full Stack Engineer (Contract) - Typescript / Next.js / Node.js

You’ll join hedgehog lab as a Senior Full Stack Engineer. Your first engagement will be delivering a premium, subscription-based web product for our client, Times Higher Education. It’s used by senior decision makers, so quality and trust are critical.

You’ll work end-to-end in TypeScript. You’ll build frontend features in Next.js and design backend services in Node.js.

The core data already exists. Your job is to shape how it is delivered, enriched, and served in a way that feels secure, scalable, and premium.

You’ll take ownership of API design and data modelling. You’ll help define how caching works and how static page payloads are structured.

You’ll build and improve async processing that enriches data using LLM calls. You’ll design validation and guardrails to ensure output is safe, consistent, and production-ready.

You’ll contribute to performance readiness, including handling traffic spikes during rankings release periods.

You’ll work closely with the client engineering team and influence the delivery approach. You’ll help ensure the solution is maintainable and can be owned by the client long-term.

You’ll also support mid-level engineers through reviews, good practice, and raising engineering standards.

What’s In It For You

You’ll build a product where the quality bar is high and visible. This is a premium subscription platform. The difference between “okay” and “excellent” matters.

You’ll have real ownership. You’ll make technical decisions that shape the build, not just implement tickets.

You’ll work on modern full stack TypeScript, plus AI-driven enrichment pipelines that require strong validation and QA thinking.

You’ll have influence across squads. You’ll help shape how quality and delivery standards are applied across teams.

You’ll also get variety. This is the initial project, but over time you’ll work across different clients, industries, and delivery challenges.

If you want a role where you can lead by example, own technical decisions, and ship high-trust products, this is it.

• Strong TypeScript experience across frontend and backend
• Strong Next.js experience building secure, production-grade apps
• Strong Node.js experience building APIs (Express or similar)
• Experience with Postgres and data modelling
• Experience with async worker patterns and background processing
• Experience designing robust API contracts and backend services
• Strong attention to UI quality, performance, and responsive behaviour
• Ability to work confidently with clients and internal teams, * Experience integrating with LLM APIs and handling non-deterministic output
• Experience building validation and guardrails around generated content
• AWS experience and familiarity with Kubernetes-based deployment models
• CI/CD experience (CircleCI or similar)