At a Glance
- Tasks: Prototype and build digital tools for social innovation projects.
- Company: Nesta, the UK's leading innovation agency for social good.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, health plans, flexible working, and professional growth opportunities.
- Other info: Join a diverse team committed to innovation and positive change.
- Why this job: Make a real impact by developing solutions for society's biggest challenges.
- Qualifications: Experience in software development and collaboration in multidisciplinary teams.
The predicted salary is between 58500 - 58500 £ per year.
We are Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to society’s biggest problems. Our three missions are to give every child a fair start, help people live healthy lives, and create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet. For over 20 years, we have worked to support, encourage and inspire innovation.
As a Creative Technologist you will prototype and build digital tools and products in service of Nesta’s innovation missions and goals. The things you will help build will range from full-stack web applications; functional prototypes for user testing; and beyond. This role will suit someone with real-world experience of working in small multidisciplinary teams to rapidly build and maintain prototypes or early stage digital products/MVPs across the full-stack, often using established frameworks (like Ruby on Rails or Django/Python) and existing tech where it makes sense.
The ideal candidate would be highly collaborative, outcome-focused and self-driven with the ability to take an idea or brief and simply and quickly turn it into a functional prototype or product alongside non-technical colleagues. It’s also very possible you will have skills beyond software engineering (e.g. arts, design, product, etc) or have developed your own digital products, and are more interested in quickly and simply delivering valuable digital products than tackling the most challenging engineering problems.
The role:
- Build software in service of our social innovation missions (A Fairer Start, A Healthy Life, and A Sustainable Future) and work closely with our practices (methodological experts in data science, design, experimentation, etc.) to identify and develop technological solutions or enhancements to achieve our mission goals.
- Make regular hands‑on software development contributions independently or as part of a multidisciplinary team to rapidly build digital tools and products that meet users and stakeholder needs in service of our mission goals.
- Simply and quickly turn ambiguous concepts or ideas into tangible functional or semi‑functional software prototypes or products to demonstrate their potential and help us learn.
- Deploy and maintain the digital products and tools you help build including finding ways to make improvements and resolving faults quickly.
- Write clean, secure and well‑tested code, following best practice guidelines.
- Work with non‑technical colleagues/partners from other disciplines to scope opportunities for software solutions.
- Contribute to the activities of multidisciplinary teams you are part of beyond programming.
- Regularly pick up and explore tools and technologies that are new to you.
- Work with Nesta’s ‘Discovery’ function to identify, assess and prototype the potential of promising, cutting‑edge technology‑based ideas and approaches.
The person:
Essential:
- Experience of working in small teams or individually to rapidly build and release full‑stack digital products using multiple languages and frameworks.
- Comfortable with core web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
- Familiar with good design and able to follow guidelines and specifications.
- Experience of rapidly developing and releasing early stage digital products and prototypes.
- Ability to identify, locate and fix faults.
- Understanding of information security and designing solutions with security controls embedded.
- Track record of designing and delivering the simplest working solution.
- Experience integrating different technologies.
- Ability to build software that meets the needs of users and stakeholders.
- Experience presenting technical concepts and collaborating effectively.
Desirable:
- Experience developing your own digital products with a social impact purpose.
- Experience of building data products and systems that have AI features.
- Experience of commissioning and overseeing tech‑related work.
What we offer:
- Salary: circa £58,500 plus array of benefits, including health cash plans, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more.
- Location: Blackfriars, Central London - hybrid working arrangement, with a minimum of two days working from the office.
- Term: Permanent and 12-month Fixed Term Contract.
- Hours: This is a full‑time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements.
- Reports to: Product Lead.
Diversity, equity and inclusion:
At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results. We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.
