Description:
Alongside AI engineering, software engineering is the core technical discipline in the Incubator. Whilst AI Engineers focus on the implementation and evaluation of machine learning and LLM technology, software engineers, including front end developers, are responsible for integrating that technology into working software that delights users and delivers against well-defined metrics.
Key responsibilities will include:
A front end developer at i.AI forms part of a delivery team, collaborating with researchers, designers, software developers and AI engineers to deliver excellent services. Projects at the incubator take different forms, from quick prototypes to fully-fledged production services and you will need to be comfortable with both those approaches.
You will be responsible for:
- Delivering clean, semantic HTML, CSS and JavaScript to support high-quality, accessible user experiences.
- Creating robust frontends that benefit from progressive enhancement and work across a range of devices.
- Using your experience working with and without frontend frameworks to help the team make good decisions about which technologies to adopt.
- Sharing your knowledge via activities like pair programming.
- Advocating for coding standards and good practices, especially for JavaScript.
- Using CSS methodologies such as preprocessors (eg SCSS) and naming conventions (e.g. BEM).
- Working with design systems such as the GOV.UK Design System.
- Applying knowledge of web application security and accessibility standards (OWASP, WCAG).
- Supporting the effective management and performance of the team by promoting diversity, inclusion, regular, honest and constructive feedback, and supporting continuous improvement.
Person specification
Essential skills
- Strong frontend development skills (JavaScript, HTML, CSS).
- Writing clean, maintainable code and having an understanding of automated testing.
- Writing accessible code following a progressive enhancement approach.
- Ability to accurately turn designs into working code, collaborating with software engineers and designers to ensure that your solution meets requirements.
- Able to prototype rapidly in code, for example using tools such as the GOV.UK prototype kit.
- Ability to work with technical and non-technical colleagues to translate user needs into requirements.
- Proactive in learning new skills.
Experience of any of the following would be beneficial but is not essential:
- Experience working with products that have an AI component, such as chat interfaces.
- Experience with node.js.
- Willingness to learn python, which we use for our backend services.