Senior Backend Engineer – Storyfinding Team

About the role

The Financial Times is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join the Storyfinding team, which bridges journalism and technology. You will design, build, and operate backend systems and data pipelines that enable investigative reporting and editorial storytelling.

Key responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services, APIs, and cloud infrastructure.
• Create and operate robust data pipelines that ingest, clean, enrich, and model complex datasets.
• Develop shared data infrastructure to turn one‑off investigations into reusable tools.
• Collaborate with journalists, product managers, and engineers to translate editorial questions into scalable data solutions.
• Lead engineering best practices, mentor junior engineers, and ensure high standards of testing, observability, and security.

Required profile

• Curious and pragmatic, motivated by impact on real‑world journalism.
• Comfortable working with messy, unstructured data and shifting editorial priorities.
• Strong communication skills for both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Interest in AI, agentic AI, and emerging technologies.

Required skills

• Python for backend services and data processing.
• AWS cloud platform.
• Apache Airflow for workflow orchestration.
• SQL and experience with databases such as BigQuery, Redshift, PostgreSQL, SingleStore, MongoDB.
• Version control (GitHub) and CI/CD pipelines (CircleCI).
• Familiarity with Streamlit for lightweight user interfaces.

What we offer

• Annual bonus scheme.
• 25 days paid leave.
• 24/7 Employee Assistance Program.
• Life insurance and enhanced parental leave.
• Food allowance and Multisport card.
• In‑house and external training programs with a dedicated training budget.