Senior Backend Engineer

About the role

You will design, build, and operate backend systems and services that power Storyfinding's investigative and editorial work. You will own the full lifecycle of data-intensive features from conception through production operation. You will ensure high standards of software quality, reliability, and security across all systems you touch. You will directly impact journalism by turning complex investigations into scalable data products visible on the FT's homepage. You will balance strong engineering practices with the fast-moving needs of the newsroom.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design and operate data pipelines that ingest, clean, enrich, and model complex datasets for investigative reporting.
• Build resilient, observable data workflows to support high-traffic and time-critical newsroom events such as elections or major economic announcements.
• Develop shared data infrastructure and tooling that turns one-off investigations into reusable capabilities for the wider newsroom.
• Work with unstructured and semi-structured data sources (documents, filings, scraped content, APIs) to create high-quality, queryable datasets.
• Collaborate with journalists, product managers, and engineers to translate editorial questions into scalable data solutions.
• Lead by example in engineering best practices, including code review, documentation, and pragmatic architectural decision-making.
• Support and mentor more junior engineers through pairing, feedback, and knowledge sharing.
• Identify areas where AI and new technologies can help in the newsroom and be able to propose ideas.
• Actively participate in the process of requirements gathering and have the desire to have regular catch-ups with editors and journalists if that's needed.
• Maintain and evolve data products that empower journalists to tell stories that otherwise would be untold.
• Ensure end-to-end reliability of data pipelines in a cloud environment with a focus on observability and monitoring.
• Partner with the Computational Journalism team to uncover and scale new ways of finding stories from complex data.

Requirements

• Strong experience as a backend engineer designing and building production-grade distributed systems and APIs in a cloud environment.
• Excellent Python skills for developing backend services, system integration, and data processing.
• Solid experience as a data engineer with a vital skill set in maintaining production data pipelines and using workflow orchestration tools like Apache Airflow.
• Experience working with cloud platforms, particularly AWS.
• Familiarity with modern engineering practices including version control, CI/CD, and automated testing.
• The ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Interest in exploring new technologies and approaches related to AI and Agentic AI.
• An interest in journalism, investigations, or using data to answer real-world questions.
• Data Science (DS) experience or education is highly valuable for this role, as we leverage AI heavily for many of our use cases.

Nice to have

• Strong SQL skills and experience designing and working with relational and analytical databases.
• Experience with databases such as BigQuery, Redshift, PostgreSQL, SingleStore, or MongoDB.
• Experience working with unstructured or semi-structured data at scale.
• A solid understanding of data modelling, data architecture, and trade-offs between different storage and processing approaches.
• Comfort contributing to backend software engineering tasks beyond pure data pipelines.
• Exposure to building internal tools or lightweight user-facing applications.
• Experience with building simple user interfaces or/and the desire to do so (e.g., using frameworks like Streamlit).

Practical notes

We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, building stronger relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning. We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams.

We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments/personalisation as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements or have any questions, email talent@ft.com and a member of our team will be happy to help.

At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may leverage AI tools as part of their job application process. Whilst we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience, and qualifications. Candidates should be aware that the use of AI throughout the application process may be monitored to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process for all. Please beware of fraudulent job postings and offers claiming to be from the Financial Times. All legitimate opportunities will direct you to apply through the official Financial Times careers site, and the FT will never ask for financial information, payments, or referrals to third parties during the hiring process. If you have any concerns about the legitimacy of a job posting or suspect any scam activity, please contact talent@ft.com.