3 Senior systems engineer jobs in Edinburgh

We're FIRST UK: an EdTech charity using robots, role models and competitions to make STEM more approachable and inclusive – empowering young people with the technical and life skills to engineer bright futures.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR

An exceptional leader who will deploy a systematic approach to identify, build and retain relationships with educators, employers, government which will underpin our growth – whilst ensuring safety, quality, and impact of experience for young people, teachers, volunteers.

As Delivery Director, you will be the senior leader accountable for two inextricably linked elements:

1. Growth - more schools, teachers, young people, employers, volunteers
2. Scalability - overseeing safe, high-quality, efficient, replicable deliver

You will implement the growth architecture which scales the charity’s impact through:

• Proactive, targeted growth in regional hubs aligned to strategic objectives
• Better, earlier, sustained engagement with schools and educators
• System-level entry points through MATs, educator networks, strategic partners
• Retention mechanisms that embed participation institutionally
• Ownership of quality & impact measures supporting participation, completion, return
• Regional industry partner/employer pipeline building, conversion, stewardship
• Volunteer and alumni community oversight, experience and quality
   

WHAT YOU’LL GET

In addition to a genuinely distinctive mission, making STEM accessible to young people who are too often excluded from it, alongside measurable, evidenced outcomes and a growing profile with funders and media you'll have:

• Leadership, autonomy and sense of purpose
• A compelling value proposition and strong operational platform to build on
• A well-defined strategy to execute against
• Sector credibility, positive reputation and relationships to grow
• Competitive salary, benefits in a lean, agile and fast-paced organisation

You will be the leader who takes a charity from start-up mode to a nationally recognised, regionally embedded impact organisation – transforming the outlook for thousands of young people annually.

WHO MIGHT THIS ROLE SUIT

Someone who 'gets' growth and has credible experience owning and scaling a programme, product, or service. You’re systematic in approach whilst appreciating the power of relationships and delivery through others. A sophisticated leader you motivate, coach and support others to achieve more. You see both the challenges and opportunities within a high growth potential organisation and are always ahead of them.
 

I love the sound of this; is there more I need to know?

If there is, we'll chat about it at the ‘get to know’ stage.

CONDITIONS

We don’t talk about benefits; we talk about culture. It’s not how many hours you work or where you work them – it’s what you deliver.

• Competitive salary - £75K - £84K per annum
• 28 days annual leave + 8 bank hols + Xmas gift
• Remote/flexible working
• 3% pension + death in service (4 x annual salary)
• Generous enhanced maternity/paternity
• Staff wellbeing programme

Location

Our team is home-based, coming together regularly to co-work, and deliver events. You should expect to attend a team collaboration day at least monthly, usually in London. This may require an overnight stay dependent on your location. If you can conduct your role effectively and are willing to travel to maximise growth opportunities, you can be based anywhere in the UK.
 

APPLICATION PROCESS

• Applications via our HR platform Workable
• Submit CV and optional cover letter (no more than 1 page)
• Answer three simple screening questions
• Role closes 2359 on Wed 14 Oct 2026
• Get to Know conversations with CEO w/c 19 Oct
• Panel interviews w/c 26 Oct
   

SAFER RECRUITMENT

To apply you must live in and have the right to work in the UK. In accordance with our Safer Recruitment Policy, all employees of the charity will be asked for two references which will be conducted by phone and are subject to Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks upon appointment. 

Championing diversity in STEM

FIRST UK is committed to building a team that reflects the diversity of the young people we serve. We actively welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, including those underrepresented in STEM and in the charity sector. If you share our belief that every young person deserves access to meaningful engineering and technology experiences regardless of their background, we would love to hear from you.

Closing date: Monday 12th October at 9am

About the role

This is a technical leadership role, helping deliver the modernisation of the technology that lets our community of over a million people take action every day on the issues they care about. Our enterprise scale tools are being re-built into a modern, modular platform and you’ll be joining the team as a leader in this work

You’ll be the second senior engineer on the team, joining as an equal partner to our existing senior engineer. This role requires an experienced technology leader with a proven track record of delivering great product and engineering outcomes — someone who has already shaped product engineering strategy, architected and engineered great products, developed people and teams, and established engineering standards through the delivery of significant projects at this level.

For many years, we have maintained a spectrum of different in-house products and are now building a modular platform, and your experience of leading on projects or products like this will be extremely valuable to us.

AI first development is central to our operational and development model and this role will offer you the opportunity to work with a team who’ve already proven that we can use AI development tools to deliver for our organisation. We’re looking to you to help us explore and achieve even more.

We’re on a mission to create an elegant, stable and highly effective platform that sits at the core of our mission – to make our country a fairer, more respectful, more sustainable place, and we’re excited to learn how you’ll help with this.

You will have real agency and influence within a small, growing team to try new things and contribute to making a real-world impact. You will help deliver our product roadmap and identify areas for technological innovation that will continue an exciting new chapter of 38 Degrees. Day-to-day, we are working out how to deliver cutting-edge software development in the age of AI and we are excited for the successful candidate to be a core part of this process.

This is a rare opportunity to help redesign a tech stack, develop a best practice AI-enabled software development model with the highest technical standards and deliver a sector-leading set of tools for one of the biggest campaigning organisations in the UK.

There are no formal education requirements for this role. As long as you can show us that you have the skills we don’t mind where you got them from! To be successful in your application you must meet the requirements of this role and answer the questions below which are part of the selection criteria. Without completion of this task your application cannot be considered.

Your background and experience

We are looking for someone with experience leading development, teams, products and technical standards – you’ll be adept at setting direction and bringing others with you. You’re someone who’s accountable and takes ownership, delivering what they promise. You’re always striving to improve and effective at motivating others to follow the standards you set. You will have experience developing software using AI tools, and be brimming with ideas about how a small technology team can make the most of tools like Claude Code to multiply our impact and how you’ll use your influence in the team to make that happen.

You’re someone who understands the discipline around leading and maintaining a product, not just working across technologies. You are creative and curious when it comes to solving business problems, comfortable asking users “why” and understanding what they are trying to achieve, and you enjoy collaborating to identify and deliver the best technical solutions. You understand the non-profit campaigning domain we’re operating in, or you’re excited to learn. You demonstrate the specific technical expertise the role requires while also applying product-outcomes-thinking best practice to work effectively with end users.

You are a patient and clear communicator with non-technical stakeholders, and you’re motivated by achieving real lasting business impact and collaboratively solving business problems with users rather than simply delivering requested features. You’re driven by the opportunity to build best-in-class campaign tools and deliver professional, high-quality work that makes our tech products a joy for users and supporters to interact with.

You are flexible, as comfortable responding to short-notice reactive requests and staying cool-headed in a crisis as you are pushing forward longer-term product development work. You’re eagle-eyed when it comes to tackling technical debt and putting effective processes in place to maintain high-quality development. You’ll be keen to play a key part in shaping the culture and professional standards of our team.

And finally – you’ll need a passion for being part of our mission to make the country a fairer, more respectful, more sustainable place, and a hunger to give our supporters the power to help make that happen.

Full job description: Salary Scale F1 – Senior Developer _ Campaign Technologist

About us

38 Degrees is a community of more than a million people who – in a moment away from their busy days – take small actions on issues they care about, which all add up to something bigger, a movement for a better Britain for everyone who calls our country home.

A Britain where we all get a fair chance in life and where the place we were born, or the area we live in, doesn’t decide that chance. Where we protect our planet and hold those in power to account for doing the same, and where we are treated, and treat one another, with respect.

In the space of a week, millions of supporters could be campaigning on anything from protecting our NHS and stopping cuts to Universal Credit, to saving local green spaces and protecting our democracy.

38 Degrees is fiercely independent. We are primarily funded by small donations from hundreds of thousands of members of the public from all over the UK. This independence means we never have to hold ourselves back from taking on those with power and can truly listen to our supporters.

Benefits of working for 38 Degrees

38 Degrees’ approach to total rewards (salaries, rewards and benefits) is rooted in our Compensation Philosophy which defines our principles and the criteria to ascertain whether decisions on pay and reward meet those principles – our ultimate aim is to attract and retain a talented, driven team, and reward all of us for the impactful work we do in a way which is fair, equitable and sustainable, based on this philosophy and our vision to make the UK fairer, more respectful and more sustainable.

38 Degrees employee salaries, rewards and benefits are benchmarked against the UK Not For Profit sector.

38 Degrees’ culture is honest, kind, supportive, courageous, and respectful. We move fast, and frequently change plans to respond to events. We work hard but we also have fun.

We regularly enjoy team away days and social hours.

Additional Benefits (as per the statutory or enhanced qualifying conditions in the staff handbook)

Currently we provide:

• 38 Degrees operates a four-day working week. Our working days are Monday – Thursday. On rare occasions employees may work on a Friday to manage reactive work or communication with organisations that work a five-day week. If a bank holiday falls on a Monday, employees are required to work Tuesday – Friday
• For a four-day working week employees receive 24 days (pro rata) annual leave per year (plus bank holidays) pro rata. The office closes between Christmas and New Year, employees do not need to take this additional time from their annual leave allocation
• Employer pension contribution
• 24 hour employee assistance programme
• Family leave policies (some with enhancements)
• Employer paid annual flu vaccination
• Rental deposit loan
• Contribution to eye tests/glasses
• Learning and development budget

We are developing the following benefits which we will communicate when finalised:

• One month paid sabbatical leave as per policy terms after 5 years of service
• Cycle to work scheme
• IVF
• Menopause
• Religious leave
• Surrogacy
• Parental Bereavement Leave
• Global Remote working

Our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We’re especially keen to hear from people who’ll bring lived experience of the issues we work on and who’ll make our team more diverse as a result. So if you’re Black, Asian or from any other minority ethnic group, if you’re disabled, LGBTQIA+, or if you’re from a working class home, your application will be especially welcome. And thanks to our flexible home working approach and network of offices, we have a staff team that is increasingly based across the UK. A third of us live outside London. We’re keen to continue diversifying geographically, so that we’re rooted in our supporters’ communities.

To make sure that we are able to reach our goal of a diverse team we have equal opportunities monitoring requirements. Your application will not be complete without the equal opportunities monitoring form.

38 Degrees is committed to inclusive working practices, so during the application process we commit to:

• Paying for childcare whilst you’re at 38 Degrees interviews or tasks.
• Paying for your travel costs to the office and back – and for overnight accommodation if you’re travelling from a long distance for an interview although at present the majority of interviews are held online.
• Making any reasonable adjustments – for example ensuring we have a BSL interpreter organised in advance if you’d need one.
• If there is anything else you’re concerned about or think we could provide, please let us know.

To be successful in your application you must meet the essential requirements for this role and answer the questions below which are part of the selection criteria. Without completion of this task your application cannot be considered.

The successful candidate must have the right to work in the UK at the time of appointment.

The recruitment process: In addition to your written application (details below), you will be required to complete a ‘live’ technical test and two rounds of interviews (all remotely). You can apply for this through Charity Job, please ensure you have answered the application questions below.

Application Questions (max. word count: 2000 words across all questions)

1. As a senior engineer, how have you approached managing the adoption of AI tools (e.g. Claude Code or similar) across a team? How do you balance encouraging adoption with maintaining code quality and standards? Can you give an example of a decision you made, or would make, about where AI tools should and shouldn’t be used, and how you’d bring the rest of the team along with that view?
2. In your view, how is the day-to-day practice of software development changing as AI tools become more capable? What has and hasn’t changed about how a team should be structured or how work should be planned, compared to a traditional development model?
3. Please outline an example of an unexpected technical issue that impacted core business operations and how you dealt with that.
4. Select an application you regularly use and describe three key design features that enhance its user experience. What considerations do you think influenced these design choices?