Web Developer Python Django

Location: Remote first within the UK. We work primarily from home but also have an office available in Central London for monthly in-person meetings with your team and quarterly all team meetings. You can expect to travel to the office at least 16 times per year.

Reporting to: Product Manager (Supporter Experience)

Employment Type: Permanent

We are happy to talk about flexible working.

Application Closing Date: 10am on Monday 21 April 2025

Introduction to the role: As a Web Developer at Full Fact, you will be part of a team that helps tackle the spread of misleading, dangerous claims and hold those responsible to account. Our website serves as the core platform for delivering this crucial work to a broad audience. You will play a vital role in shaping the technological infrastructure to ensure our digital presence is robust, accessible, and effective. Joining our team at an exciting time of change, you will help us complete our transition from Django CMS to Wagtail. This is a full stack role with a strong focus on backend development within Wagtail. You will help design and build systems and processes that empower our content teams to work effectively and to facilitate an exceptional user experience. Frontend development skills are a bonus but not essential for this role. You’ll work closely with colleagues across the Public Affairs team, contributing to projects and campaigns that shape public debate and promote accuracy in public life. If you’re passionate about using technology to build a better information environment, and thrive in a collaborative, mission-driven environment, we’d love to hear from you. If you are interested in applying but not sure you have all the skills, please do apply. We are open both to supporting learning on the job and to rearranging tasks within the team to suit the skillsets of the best applicant.

Job Definition: In this role, you will:

• Manage the switch from our Django CMS to a (ready to launch) Wagtail CMS.
• Deliver new features to our Wagtail CMS and website functionality.
• Ensure our codebase continues to be easily maintainable by a small team.
• Make architectural decisions that help determine how the frontend and backend interact.
• Support the software you write - occasionally this could mean working out-of-hours to resolve a critical issue or complete a deployment.
• Contribute technically towards pitches and project proposals.
• Provide support to internal users of Wagtail e.g. writing process documentation, troubleshooting issues and training new users.
• Work across the technical stack and occasionally build APIs to connect the Salesforce CRM and other web apps.

Outcomes: The software you build is robust, and helps achieve real work impact to fight bad information through effective organisational processes and better external user experiences.

What we are looking for from you:

Political impartiality and sensitivity: You are committed to the political neutrality of our work and have a good understanding of impartiality. Understanding of public debate in the UK and sensitivity to the political context we work in.

Job skills/competencies:

Essential:

• A strong understanding and professional experience developing Django, Python and PostgreSQL.
• Working knowledge of modern version control software and practices (particularly Git and GitHub).
• A good understanding of Full Fact’s aims and how your role can meet charity needs.
• Be confident in communicating with both technical and non-technical internal teams to interpret project requirements and convert these into robust technical architecture.
• Understanding of frontend web technologies such as Javascript, HTML and CSS fundamentals, awareness of browser compatibility and responsive styling and knowledge or experience styling frameworks.

Desirable:

• Experience or expertise with Wagtail CMS.
• Experience and proficiency in frontend development.
• Experience working with RESTful APIs.
• Experience working with server management.
• Experience with Agile working practices.

What we offer:

• Starting salary of £41,400 - £55,000 per annum depending on experience.
• Workplace Pension.
• Generous holidays: 25 days holiday plus bank holidays. In addition, we close the office for a period between Christmas and New Year. Day off for moving home.
• Comfortable, centrally located London office with good transport links.
• Employee Assistance Programme.

How to apply: Upload your CV and cover letter using the link below by 10am on Monday 21 April 2025.

Our recruitment platform will remove identifying details such as email addresses to allow us to sift applications anonymously. Before applying, please read the requirements we place on staff to protect Full Fact’s independence and non-partisanship on our website.

How the application process will work: We want to see you at your best to understand your strengths and the contribution you could make at Full Fact with strong support, including for your learning and development. We also want to make sure that we use your time well during this process and don’t ask for more from you than we need to. We will make any reasonable adjustments we need to make to this process to help ensure you can perform at your best.

The interview panel will include Jon Chittenden, Product Manager (Supporter Experience), James McMinn, Senior Software Engineer, Laura Dewis, Chief Operations Officer and Mark Frankel, Head of Public Affairs. The process starts off with an anonymised covering letter and CV. This will be read by at least two people to produce a shortlist for interview. The first round interviews will be a phone (not video) interview, lasting no more than half an hour, at a time that’s convenient for you. We will record it so at least two people can review each interview to decide who we invite back for the second round. The recordings will be deleted at the end of the process. The second round will include a structured technical interview and discussion where you’ll have the opportunity to talk about some work you are proud of and find out about how we work at Full Fact. The final interview will be with the full panel by video and last no more than an hour. We’ll tell you everything you need to know to prepare, including anything we’d recommend reading in advance.