Lead Front End Developer

Hammersmith And Fulham, London
UKTV

Lead Front End Developer

Closing date: Jan 27 th 2021

Location: Remote / 10HG Hammersmith

A little bit about our team

The Digital Products team has responsibility for the rollout and continuous improvement of UKTV’s video on demand products under the digital brand UKTV Play, across a range of platforms including web, iOS, Android and TV devices.

The team is seventeen strong and is made up of front-end and back-end developers and designers, test analysts and project managers.

We’re looking for an experienced and motivated lead front-end developer to take responsibility for and manage the front-end team within Digital Products. This is a great chance to work on a high profile, direct to consumer, video on demand product, for a forward-thinking media company, helping to shape the future of television. This is a key position in the team where you will be required to input into wider technical conversations, being a real driving force. You’ll be working alongside some of the most talented digital minds in the industry across a portfolio of platforms.

Purpose of the role

In this role you will manage a team of four front end developers, leading them through the busy roadmap, having responsibility for the front-end codebases across TV, web and mobile. In addition to managing new platform and feature releases you will also liaise with third party suppliers and our platform partners on releases.

In this role you will get to..

• Work as a development technical leader alongside various core business, and technical teams
• Be responsible for the front-end web team and its codebase, js
• Be responsible for the front-end TV app team and its codebase, TAL, a BBC open-source JavaScript framework, which supports HTML5-compatible devices such as Freeview Play, Samsung TV and Amazon Fire
• Oversee the iOS and Android mobile app development, currently being rebuilt in native with external developers
• Be across other codebases such as Apple TV and Roku that are outsourced due to being unique to a single device
• Undertake code reviews, driving quality standards and helping the wider front-end dev team

• Proactively research new technology, frameworks, code libraries, techniques and trends, adopting new ways of working where appropriate

• Manage the team of four front-end developers, actively developing their knowledge and expanding their skill set
• Take responsibility for the quality and timeliness of the front-end development team, ensuring best practice is followed, priorities are clear and encouraging a collaborative way of working

• Manage workload proactively alongside the project managers, creating time estimates where necessary with quickly changing priorities and maintaining momentum within your team
• Coordinate and manage front-end development work streams that are outsourced to agencies, consultants or freelancers, ensuring high quality is maintained and that knowledge is transferred back to the team
• Liaising with third party suppliers and platform partners, where necessary
• Input into planning sessions with the wider stakeholder group within the business

• Participate in Agile ways of working, contributing to morning stand-ups, team planning, retrospectives and showcases

Who you are…

• You will have solid commercial experience of many of the following:
  Proven team leadership
  HTML5, CSS3 and responsive web design
  JavaScript (including ES6, async programming and object-oriented programming)
  A modern JavaScript framework (e.g. React, Angular or Vue)
  Mobile app development for iOS and Android (using either a hybrid framework or native)
  Integration of 3rd party services and APIs into an existing technology stack
  Command line usage
  Build tools (e.g. Grunt, Gulp, Webpack etc)
  Front-end performance best practices
  Cross-browser and cross-device compatibility, including legacy browsers
• Experience of the following would be an advantage:
  Experience in the BBC TAL framework for TV app development
  Knowledge of HTML5 video playback, encoding and DRM
  Examples of past projects and/or open-source contributions
• Experience working on direct to consumer products in a digital environment
• Experience of working on a product long-term, seeing it through various iterations
• Proactive in managing a range of key digital projects within a front-end team
• Have an interest in new technologies and coding standards
• Have a collaborative mindset, welcoming the opportunity to discuss ideas
• Solution focussed, analysing requirements and finding the best technical solution

• A genuine passion for TV and the entertainment industry in general

Don’t have all the above, don’t let that stop you! Here are some additional skills that we would like to hear about:

• Worked closely with a technical architect, designing functional technology solutions to meet specific business requirements
• Beneficial if you have worked with other on-demand platforms, such as YouView, Freeview Play, etc. in some capacity
• Agency experience working on broadcaster VoD products
• Experience of the TAL codebase in some capacity
• Previously worked in a broadcast environment

Diversity & Inclusion Commitment

At UKTV, our inclusion vision is to truly represent society in our workforce and on-screen, and create a culture of fairness and respect where we champion difference so that every person feels included and empowered to do their best work. We are committed to ensuring that all employees and job applicants are given equal opportunity, and that we have diverse voices at the table in everything we do. We welcome applications from everyone and we want UKTV to be a place where you can be your authentic self, give your best and develop your career free from discrimination of any kind.