Senior systems engineer jobs in edinburgh
Senior Software Engineer
Remote (UK-based) | Full-time | Flexible working | Competitive salary + excellent benefits
Do your best work, for the right reasons.
We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help us build beautifully simple, high-impact digital products that support teachers and improve outcomes for pupils across the UK.
Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We’re a national not-for-profit working in partnership with teachers to create high-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups.
Our culture has been independently recognised through:
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Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling)
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Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact
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Investors in People Gold - through external accreditation and colleague feedback
�� About the Role
You’ll join our AI-Enablement team to build and improve the digital platforms that teachers and pupils rely on every day. Working closely with product managers, designers, researchers, and curriculum specialists, you will develop user-facing applications with AI features utilising technologies such as TypeScript and Next.js. You’ll also interact with our backend systems using PostgreSQL databases and GraphQL APIs. You'll stay ahead of the curve in AI developments across the industry and gain hands-on experience building user-facing AI tools in production.
This is a hands-on role with plenty of scope for technical leadership and mentoring, alongside the opportunity to shape our engineering practices and culture. You'll be part of a supportive and collaborative team that cares deeply about accessibility, usability, and delivering tools that genuinely enhance learning.
�� What You’ll Be Doing
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Development of highly-responsive, accessible web-based AI features
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Designing and writing clean, well-tested code that’s easy to maintain and scale
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Be the expert authority within the engineering team on several important aspects of the code base and maintain a good working knowledge of large parts of the technology stack
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Championing new tools or practices that improve the developer experience
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Supporting and mentoring colleagues across the team
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Taking part in our on-call rota to help keep our products reliable and available
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Collaborating with others across the organisation in multi-disciplinary squads
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Contributing to planning, retros, and the wider culture of Oak
�� What We’re Looking For
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Proven professional experience building AI features with TypeScript and React frameworks (ideally Next.js)
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An understanding of how generative AI works and the ability to balance experimentation on new tools and techniques with building production-ready AI features
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Experience working on cross-functional product teams in agile environments
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Experience building automated test suites and understanding the value of different types of testing (e.g. unit vs integration)
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Desire to build beautiful, easy-to-use digital products with an understanding of the importance of accessibility in all its forms
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Strong collaboration and communication skills
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Comfortable working independently in a remote setup, managing your time and relationships effectively
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A proactive, growth-oriented mindset and a desire to help others thrive
�� Our Benefits
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25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)
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Additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year
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11% employer pension contribution (with no minimum employee contribution)
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A 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off
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Fully remote working — we’ll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred
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Twice-yearly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun
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A culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust
The successful candidate will have a desire to contribute in all areas to ensure Oak's success. You will be comfortable working at pace, with a range of digital systems (including proprietary ones as required), and you will continuously look at ways that the team can keep getting better. You will excel at working as part of a remote team, building relationships and managing your time effectively.
�� Inclusion and Belonging
We believe diverse teams build better products. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those who are underrepresented in the tech and education sectors.
We use the Applied recruitment platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process.
�� Key Info
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Location: Remote, but you must be based in the UK with the legal right to work here
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Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time
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Closing date: We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in and may close the role early
If this sounds like the kind of role and team where you could do your life’s best work, we’d love to hear from you.
Next steps
You’ll answer some questions related to your day-to-day job. After the advert closes, your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised, and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers (real humans).
If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next stage, which will consist of a remote technical interview and a technical pairing session conducted over Zoom. This will last approximately two hours.
We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process, we'll share our assessment of your performance.
We are aiming to start interviews in January 2026.
We are receiving excellent responses to our job advertisements. This may lead us to close the role early, so if you are considering applying, then please get your application in early to avoid missing out.
We are an equal opportunities employer.
We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.
Non Charity Employer 
101 - 500
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
Head of Technology & Data
Permanent. Full time. Hybrid working (2 days per week in the officer)
Location: This role can be based in the UK (Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Warrington), or in one of our global hub sites (Abuja, Bogota, Dhaka, Nairobi, New Delhi)
Salary:
UK £81,314 (London), or £76,432 (Cardiff, Edinburgh, Warrington).
Global - Competitive salary for each location
If we receive a high volume of applications, we reserve the right to close the advert before the scheduled closing date. Therefore, we encourage interested applicants to apply at their earliest convenience.
About us
Christian Aid exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty. We are a global movement of people, churches and local organisations who passionately champion dignity, equality and justice worldwide. We are the changemakers, the peacemakers, the mighty of heart.
We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and recognise the value this brings in forming strong, creative and high performing teams. We welcome applications from all sections of the community, and from those with experience from outside of the voluntary sector. And no, you don’t have to be Christian to work here – we encourage people of all faiths and none to apply. We just ask that everyone lives out our values of dignity, equality, justice and love. We value a good work-life balance, so we’re open to part-time and flexible working. We also offer hybrid working for our office-based colleagues.
About the role
Reporting in to the Director of Finance and Corporate Governance, the Head of Technology & Data will champion the development, implementation, and use of information technology and data throughout Christian Aid, creating a culture of innovation and empowering IT users.
Some of the main areas of responsibility for the Head of Technology & Data include:
- Responsible for building, supervising and maintaining a highly available and secure enterprise infrastructure including 24x7 cloud servers, mobility and remote access services and Azure Active Directory.
- Develop a road map for the strategic development of technology and data functions which incorporates system upgrades, installations, and conversions to ensure smooth transitions and optimised functionality for all users.
- Manage ITIL compliant processes including change management and service transition striving for innovation, reliability, and alignment with organisational goals.
- Collaborate proactively to develop strategies that enhance client services, amplify user efficiency, and inspire creative solutions to emerging challenges.
- Inspire and empower ICT staff by hiring, training, mentoring, and appraising team members, cultivating a culture of continuous development and excellence.
- Oversee network administration and network engineering (VPN, VOIP, Wan or relevant emerging technology) in key sites.
- Foster adaptability within ICT staff to align with evolving user needs, emerging technologies, and varied team dynamics.
- Maintain accurate documentation of systems, policies, and processes, ensuring clarity and accessibility for users and team members.
- Deliver user support through responsive helpdesk services and technical solutions tailored to client needs.
- Foster a culture of innovation ensuring Christian Aid are at the forefront of technological advancements to identify and implement solutions that align with organisational values and goals.
- Manage ICT budgets responsibly, ensuring financial integrity in purchasing, planning, and reviewing resources.
- Develop robust ICT policies related to system architecture, security, disaster recovery, standards, and service delivery to ensure business continuity and uphold organisational resilience.
- Build strong long-term partnerships by negotiating and managing vendor, outsourcer, and consultant contracts to ensure value-driven outcomes
About you
Who we are looking for:
Essential:
- Degree level or equivalent with an MCSE.
- Extensive experience of the management of ICT services, including strategy development.
- Extensive experience of Project Management.
- Advanced communications and problem solving skills.
- Highly detailed knowledge of a broad range of information and communications technologies including server, desktop and network hardware and operating systems, application development, information security, internet technologies, support services, systems management tools.
- Advanced leadership and team management skills.
- Substantial supplier management experience.
- Highly developed appreciation of the interaction and impact of business and ICT strategies and operations.
Desirable:
- ITIL Foundation, Practitioner.
- Knowledge and experience of satellite communications.
- Knowledge and experience of telephony and conferencing solutions.
- Experience of multi-site delivery of ICT solutions, ideally in a multinational context.
- Hands on experience of managing resources on Microsoft Azure platform.
- Experience of network and application security implementation.
- Use of systems management and monitoring tools.
- Knowledge of emerging technologies.
Further information
At Christian Aid we strive to be an inclusive and diverse employer and recognise the value that this brings in helping to build strong, creative and high performing teams.
We are actively encouraging racialised minorities, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, returning parents or carers who are re-entering work after a career break, people with caring responsibilities, people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, women, and older workers to apply. This is because these groups are under-represented within our teams, especially at senior level, and we recognise and value the contributions members of these groups make to strong, creative and high performing teams.
We have a strong Christian ethos and we encourage applications from all faiths. Applicants will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of and sympathy with Christian Aid’s faith identity.
All successful candidates will require a DBS/police check appropriate to the role and location and a Counter Terrorism Sanction check as part of your clearance for commencing your role with us. We also participate in the Inter Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. In line with this Scheme, we will request information as part of the referencing process from job applicants’ previous employers about any findings of sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and/or sexual harassment during employment, or incidents under investigation when the applicant left employment. By submitting an application, the job applicant confirms their understanding of these recruitment procedures.
This role requires applicants to have the right to live and work in the country where this position is based and undertake the role that you have been offered. If you are successful and we make you an offer for the role, we will be required to conduct a right to work check on your immigration status in the UK. We will contact you regarding the documentation you will need to provide to evidence this.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.