Our Future Health is an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors, designed to help people live healthier lives for longer through better prevention, earlier detection and improved treatment of diseases. We will speed up the discovery of new methods of early disease detection, and the evaluation of new diagnostic tools, to help identify and treat diseases early, when outcomes are usually better. With over 2.8 million volunteers across the UK, we’re now the world’s biggest health research programme of its kind, and our volunteer group is also more diverse than other, similar health research programmes.
Technology and data are central to our mission. Our systems power web sites, clinics across the UK, secure analytics and research systems, pipelines that process highly sensitive health and genetic data, and we are continuing to grow our engineering capability to support this ambition.
We are looking for a Full-Stack Senior Software Engineer to join our cross-functional Biosamples squad. You’ll help design, build and run the systems that support how we manage biosamples and their associated operations and logistics, from the collection of samples through to their processing by our laboratory partners.
The squad builds an internal web application used by our Biosamples Operations team, alongside data-processing services and integrations with our lab partners. The software helps our teams track and manage samples, maintain a clear chain of custody and understand the information returned as samples are processed.
This is a specialist operational domain rather than a high-traffic, public-facing product. You don’t need previous biosamples, laboratory or healthcare experience, what matters is being comfortable learning a complex domain, working closely with operational colleagues and translating their needs into well-designed software.
Our tech-stack includes Typescript/Node.js, PostgreSQL, Terraform (IaC), running in Azure (Kubernetes and Azure AppService). Our engineers are full-stack, handling frontend, backend and infrastructure in a total ownership model - squads build and run it.
If you are passionate about your work, develop consistently high-quality code, and are adept at identifying, preventing, and troubleshooting problems we would love to hear from you.
Requirements
We welcome applications from all who may not feel they match the full criteria, so if you have most of the below, we'd like to hear from you:
Technical Skills
- Strong knowledge of Typescript and Node.js.
- Knowledge of modern frontend development, including JavaScript/TypeScript with frameworks like React or Next.js, and experience building intuitive, user-focused interfaces
- Experience designing and implementing backend systems
- Prior experience with Azure (ideally), AWS or GCP.
- Comfortable working with Infrastructure as Code, ideally with knowledge of Terraform.
- Knowledge and familiarity with Kubernetes a bonus
- Knowledge of good data modelling and design patterns; in-depth knowledge of relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) and familiarity other types of data store (blob, document, graph).
- Good experience in using modern, agile development practices like code review, TDD, CI/CD and pairing using tools like Git and GitHub.
- Experience of operationally managing software components once live, including; observability, logging, metrics, error reporting, debugging and live incident management.
- Experience of working with sensitive personal data.
Competencies
- Experience working in/with cross-functional teams consisting of e.g. engineers, product, UX and non-technical stakeholders
- Ability to communicate with stakeholders and audiences outside your own team
- Experience working in small, growing organisations with a high degree of ambiguity, where flexibility is valued
- Strong understanding of software quality principles and practices
- Comfortable in mentoring and coaching less experienced engineers
- Comfortable in taking part in- and sometimes facilitating technical discussions
Hiring Process
We feel hiring should be transparent and give you a real sense of what Our Future Health is like. Here's what you can expect:
- Initial chat with our Talent team (30 min) to get to know each other, discuss the role, and answer any questions you have.
- 1st interview with your potential line manager (30 min), giving you an opportunity to learn more about the Biosamples squad, discuss your experience and align on the expectations of the role.
- Technical interview with two members of our engineering team (90 min). Ahead of the interview, we'll send you a short coding exercise to complete. During the interview, you'll pair with our engineers to develop your solution further, followed by a technical discussion exploring the design and architecture of a system you've previously worked on.
- Final-stage competency interview (60 min) with a small cross-functional panel of your potential new colleagues and stakeholders. This will focus on areas such as collaboration, ownership, communication and how you work within a cross-functional team.
Benefits
- Competitive base salary from £88,000
- Generous Pension Scheme – We invest in your future with employer contributions of up to 12%
- 30 Days Holiday pro rata + Bank Holidays – Enjoy a generous holiday allowance with the flexibility to take bank holidays when it suits you
- Enhanced Parental Leave – Supporting you during life’s biggest moments
- Cycle to Work Scheme – Save 25-39% on a new bike and accessories through salary sacrifice
- Home & Tech Savings – Get up to 8% off on IKEA and Currys products, spreading the cost over 12 months through salary sacrifice
- £1,000 Employee Referral Bonus – Know someone amazing? Get rewarded for bringing them on board!
- Wellbeing Support – Access to Mental Health First Aiders, plus 24/7 online GP services and an Employee Assistance Programme for you and your family
- A Great Place to Work – We have a lovely Central London office in Holborn, and offer flexible and remote working arrangements
Join us - let’s prevent disease together.
We recommend you apply as soon as possible as occasionally due to high volumes of applications, we need to close our postings early.
At Our Future Health, we recognise the importance of having a diverse workforce and ensuring that all candidates, regardless of their background, have equitable access to our application process. We proactively encourage applicants who identify as having a disability, neurodiversity, or long-term health conditions to let us know if they require any reasonable adjustments as part of their application process.
If you do require any reasonable adjustments, please email us at [email protected]
Skills Required
- Strong knowledge of TypeScript and Node.js
- Knowledge of modern frontend development using JavaScript or TypeScript and frameworks such as React or Next.js
- Experience building user-focused interfaces
- Experience designing and implementing backend systems
- Prior experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code, ideally Terraform
- Knowledge of Kubernetes
- Knowledge of data modelling and design patterns
- In-depth knowledge of relational databases such as PostgreSQL
- Familiarity with blob, document, or graph data stores
- Experience with code review, TDD, CI/CD, and pair programming
- Experience operating live software, including observability, logging, metrics, error reporting, debugging, and incident management
- Experience working with sensitive personal data
- Experience working in cross-functional teams
- Ability to communicate with stakeholders outside the engineering team
- Experience in small, growing organisations with ambiguity and changing priorities
- Strong understanding of software quality principles and practices
- Experience mentoring and coaching less experienced engineers
- Ability to participate in and facilitate technical discussions
What We Do
Our Future Health is the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to prevent, detect and treat diseases. Our mission is to create an incredibly detailed picture of the UK population’s health, by recruiting up to five million adult volunteers from across the UK. Each volunteer will be asked to fill out a questionnaire and provide a blood sample that can be linked to their health records. Taken together, the data will present health researchers with a powerful tool to identify new ways of tackling diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and dementia. It's an unprecedented challenge that involves answering questions that have never been asked before – ethical, practical, and technological. And by getting these answers right, we believe Our Future Health will allow future generations to live in good health for longer. We are currently expanding our team and looking for specialists across various fields – people who are motivated by the opportunity of creating something new that will make a difference to society. Click on the Jobs tab above to start exploring our current opportunities. Our Future Health is a registered charity in England, Wales and Scotland.
