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Senior Full Stack Engineer- i.AI

Department for Science, Innovation & Technology

Department
Department for Science, Innovation & Technology
Location
London, Manchester, Bristol
Openings
1 post
Grade
Grade 7
Salary
£56,850 to £88,670
Closing
Closes today
Profession
Other
Contract
Permanent
Security clearance
SC
Working pattern
Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time
Apply on Civil Service Jobs

Job summary

About the jobThe Incubator for AI (i.AI) builds AI products inside the UK government that change how public services work across education, health, planning, and parliament. Small teams, startup pace, national-scale impact. We are based in London, Bristol and Manchester, with hybrid working.

Full Stack Engineers build the products and services that bring AI capabilities to users: interfaces, APIs, data layers, infrastructure and delivery pipelines that make AI safe, reliable and useful for citizens and civil servants. Our stack includes Python (Django, FastAPI), TypeScript, modern JS frameworks (React, Astro, Svelte), PostgreSQL, AWS and Terraform. We integrate frontier LLMs through providers such as Amazon Bedrock, and the AI-integration landscape evolves as the ecosystem matures.

Job summaryWe build a portfolio of AI products at different stages of maturity, from early discovery through to services running at scale. You will be part of a small cross-disciplinary team working on one of these products, owning problems end-to-end and shipping real improvements for users. Over time you may move between products as priorities shift, giving you breadth across different problem domains and technologies. We’re looking for engineers who care as much about understanding the problem as writing the code, and who thrive when working closely with people from different disciplines.

What they’re looking for

  • Who you areStrong experience building and maintaining production services across the stack, with depth in at least one backend language and one frontend framework.
  • A collaborative mindset. You believe the best outcomes come from people with different skills and backgrounds solving problems together, and you actively invest in that.
  • Experience shaping technical direction in ambiguous environments. You’re comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and revisiting them as you learn more.
  • Clear, proactive communication. You naturally keep people around you informed and bring others into decisions.
  • A commitment to quality through automated testing, code review, and thoughtful engineering practices.
  • You don't need to meet every criterion to apply. If this role excites you, we'd love to hear from you.
  • What we offerCareer-defining projects with outsized impact
  • Backing from the Prime Minister and No10 to scope and build transformative AI products.
  • Unique opportunities to apply technology to transform the public sector and citizens' lives.
  • Talented, supportive and mission-driven colleagues.
  • Resources & access
  • Access to frontier models and ample compute.
  • Work with experts across national security, policy, AI research and adjacent sciences.
  • Growth & empowerment
  • A team culture and development support that prioritises personal growth.
  • Opportunities to own important products early and develop them in small empowered teams.
  • 5 days of learning and development, annual stipends for learning and development and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
  • Life & family*
  • Opportunity to work from London, Manchester or Bristol offices.
  • Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
  • Generous annual leave - 25 days plus one additional day for each year of service
  • Generous paid parental leave (up to 39 weeks full pay + option for additional unpaid time).
  • On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
  • Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, dental insurance, donations and retail/gyms.
  • These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for people joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments.

Job description

  • Job descriptionWhat you'll doWork with your team to develop a deep understanding of the problem space, participating in discovery, interrogating assumptions, and aligning on what success looks like.
  • Shape technical approaches collaboratively, weighing trade-offs with designers, product managers and other engineers to arrive at solutions that work for users and the team.
  • Deliver working software across the full stack, from infrastructure and data layers through to APIs and user interfaces, in small, frequent increments.
  • Communicate openly by sharing progress, surfacing risks early, and documenting decisions so the team can move confidently.
  • Maintain high standards through automated testing, code review, and operational practices that keep services reliable.
  • Mentor and support other engineers through pairing, knowledge sharing, and constructive feedback.
  • Get stuck in beyond building features, whether that's participating in user research, supporting a live service, or picking up unfamiliar work to keep the team moving.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

  • UK nationals
  • nationals of the Republic of Ireland
  • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
  • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
  • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
  • individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
  • Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Selection process

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Selection ProcessAppointment is conditional on successfully completing UK Government SC clearance. Prior clearance is not required—we will sponsor and support you. You should normally have been resident in the UK for 2 of the past 5 years. Employment is conditional on obtaining and maintaining the required clearance(s). More detail on clearance eligibility can be found on the UK Government website: National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK

In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all elements of the selection process.

To apply please upload your CV and answer any required questions. There is no need to upload a separate cover letter.

Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:

  • A short initial conversation
  • Technical take home test
  • Second interview in which we’ll review the technical test
  • Third interview with wider representation from the team
  • Final interview with members of the senior team

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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