Full Time
Hybrid
Salford, GB, M50 2QH
Posted 2 days ago
110000 GBP / Year

We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual’s unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

Job Requisition ID: 25581

Job Closing Date: 10/10/2025

London, GBR, W1A 1AA
| Salford, GBR, M50 2QH

JOB DETAILS

Band: (Band E)
Salary: Upto £110,000 base salary depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
Contract type: Permanent role
Location: This is a hybrid role, and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working – Salford or London office – 1 to 2 days a week

We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

We want the BBC to be as renowned for the quality of its engineering as it is for the quality of its content. We aspire to be the best so that we can engineer outstanding digital products, at scale. Working here in an engineering role means being part of a world‑class team — and an opportunity to do some of the most meaningful work of your career.

Our Account & Identity platform underpins the BBC’s digital future, with Identity & Access Management (IAM) at its core. To meet our strategic ambitions, we are evolving into three dedicated groups: Account Capabilities, Account Platform, and User Engagement. Together, they will deliver resilient, scalable foundations and audience‑facing value at pace.

We are now hiring a Senior Principal Engineer to act as a cross‑group technical leader. This is a senior individual contributor role, accountable for engineering practices, standards, and cost efficiency across all three groups. You will be expected to bring deep IAM expertise, while also providing floating technical leadership across Account Capabilities, Account Platform, and User Engagement. You will focus on high‑impact problems for a defined period, embed sustainable solutions, and then move on to the next challenge — leaving behind stronger teams, clearer practices, and more cohesive systems.

The BBC offers an inclusive workplace where fairness, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy are part of our everyday goals and behaviours. We select candidates on merit and value diversity in all its forms.

Interview Process

We believe in fairness, transparency, and giving candidates the best opportunity to demonstrate their strengths.

Our process has two stages:

Practical Exercise – a focused task designed to explore your approach to problem‑solving and technical decision‑making.
Panel Interview – a values‑based and technical conversation with peers and leaders, where we’ll discuss your experience, approach, and how you’d tackle the challenges of this role.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

Own and shape the future of Identity and Access Management (IAM) at the BBC — guiding architectural direction, evaluating vendor solutions, and ensuring successful integration of third‑party platforms.
Provide cross‑group technical leadership across Account Capabilities, Account Platform, and User Engagement, ensuring cohesion, clarity, and alignment to shared principles.
Define and embed engineering standards that raise the bar for quality, security, and operational resilience across multiple teams.
Ensure scalability and sustainability of our account and identity systems to support long‑term growth and global reach.
Support and mentor Principal Engineers and Team Leads, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
Work in partnership with cross‑discipline peers to align technical strategy with business goals and accelerate time‑to‑market.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Essential Skills

Identity & Access Management (IAM): Proven expertise in IAM systems, authentication flows, and standards (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, MFA).
Consumer scale IAM delivery experience.
Senior IC level (Senior Principal / Staff Engineer) with cross team influence.
Strong grasp of modern engineering practices (DevOps, cloud native, infrastructure as code) with focus on cost, performance, and reliability.
Proven ability to step into complex initiatives, bring clarity, and deliver results.

Desirable Skills

Experience evaluating and integrating vendor solutions at scale.
Broader platform architecture knowledge beyond IAM.
Skilled in mentoring Principal Engineers and Team Leads.
Comfortable working in ambiguity and embedding sustainable practices.
Strong collaboration across disciplines (product, delivery, architecture).

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

For any general queries, please contact: bbchr@bbc.co.uk

Redeployment

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

To apply for this job please visit careers.bbc.co.uk.