Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Principal Full Stack Engineer- i.AI
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Bristol, London, Manchester
Job Summary
About the job
The Incubator for AI (i.AI) builds AI products inside the UK government that change how public services work across education, health, planning, and parliament. Small teams, startup pace, national-scale impact. We are based in London, Bristol and Manchester, with hybrid working.
Job Summary
We have a growing team of Full Stack Engineers building transformative AI products and infrastructure for the public good from consultation analysis in policymaking, to accelerating planning decisions, to enabling safe, effective AI tutoring in schools. As the team grows, we're creating a dedicated engineering management role so that people leadership gets the focus it deserves. Your job is to manage a group of Full Stack Engineers across one or more product teams owning their growth, performance and careers, hiring well, and building the engineering culture that helps talented people do their best work together.
This is a new role with real scope to shape it. You'll help define what engineering management looks like at i.AI, how we run progression, how we hire and onboard, the practices and rituals that make us work well together. We want someone who's seen what good looks like elsewhere and is willing to adapt it thoughtfully and collaboratively with the people here. You will report to the Head of Software Engineering.
Job Description
Job description
What you'll do
- Line manage a group of engineers of varying seniority and skillsets across one or more product teams. The team is growing and how you structure your time across direct reports, hiring and culture work is something we'd want you to have opinions on.
- Coach and develop engineers at all levels from helping senior engineers navigate influence and ambiguity, to helping earlier-career engineers build confidence and technical judgement. Own performance and progression through clear expectations, honest feedback, and supporting people through career transitions.
- Hire well. Own the end-to-end hiring process for your roles from defining what good looks like, through sourcing and interviewing, to onboarding new joiners effectively.
- Create the conditions for engineers to do their best work. Remove blockers, address team health issues early, and ensure people have the clarity, autonomy and support they need.
- Shape engineering culture by introducing, iterating on and championing practices that help the team work well together whether that’s progression frameworks, engineering forums, team days, onboarding programmes, feedback rituals.
- Raise the bar for operational excellence across the engineering organisation, contributing to org-wide standards around quality, reliability, and how we work.
- Partner with senior leadership to align on priorities, represent engineering concerns, contribute to decisions about team structure and hiring plans, and bring organisational context back to your reports.
Person specification
Who you are
- You have significant experience managing engineers, with a track record of helping people grow, perform, and navigate their careers.
- You've managed across seniority levels from earlier-career engineers through to senior or lead engineers and you adapt your approach accordingly.
- You know how you like to manage and why. You can talk concretely about how you approach performance, feedback, difficult conversations, and team health.
- You're a strong hiring manager. You've designed or significantly improved hiring processes and you know how to assess for qualities that predict success.
- You're technically credible and can understand what your reports are working on, ask the right questions, and coach engineers through technical decisions, even if you're not writing code yourself.
- You communicate clearly and build trust with people at all levels whether that's giving direct feedback to a report, influencing senior leadership, or working through a disagreement with a peer.
- You're comfortable operating in ambiguity. You're energized by shaping things rather than inheriting a playbook.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
You don't need to meet every criterion to apply. If this role excites you, we'd love to hear from you.
What we offer
Career-defining scope
- Backing from the Prime Minister and No10 to build AI products that transform public services.
- A new role at a pivotal moment. The team is growing and you'll shape engineering management, culture, and progression as we scale.
- Support engineers working at the cutting edge of AI in production, helping them grow while shipping products that matter.
- A team of talented, mission-driven engineers who care about the work.
Resources & support
- A leadership team that values people management as much as technical delivery.
- Flexible team structures and tooling, with room to experiment and innovate into new setups with full support.
- 5 days learning and development leave, annual L&D stipend, and funding for conferences and external collaborations.
Life & family*
- Opportunity to work from London, Manchester or Bristol offices.
- Hybrid working, flexibility for occasional remote work abroad and stipends for work-from-home equipment.
- Generous annual leave - 25 days plus one additional day for each year of service.
- Generous paid parental leave (up to 39 weeks full pay + option for additional unpaid time).
- On top of your salary, we contribute 28.97% of your base salary to your pension.
- Discounts and benefits for cycling to work, dental insurance, donations and retail/gyms. These benefits apply to direct employees. Benefits may differ for people joining through other employment arrangements such as secondments.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Technical take home test Second interview in which we’ll review the technical test. Details of this will be sent to candidates ahead of time.
Alongside your salary of £69,675, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £20,184 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:
- A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
- Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
- A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
- An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
- Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
- A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.
Selection Process
Appointment is conditional on successfully completing UK Government SC clearance. Prior clearance is not required—we will sponsor and support you. You should normally have been resident in the UK for 2 of the past 5 years. Employment is conditional on obtaining and maintaining the required clearance(s). More detail on clearance eligibility can be found on the UK Government website: National security vetting: clearance levels - GOV.UK
In accordance with the Civil Service Commission rules, the following list contains all elements of the selection process.
To apply please upload your CV and answer the required questions. There is no need to upload a separate cover letter.
Candidates should expect to go through some or all of the following stages once an application has been submitted:
- A short initial conversation
- Technical take home test
- Second interview in which we’ll review the technical test
- Third interview focused on your management philosophy and experience
- Final interview with members of the senior team
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills
Location