Senior Backend Engineer

About us

Climate Policy Radar is an independent non-profit building open, credible data infrastructure and AI-powered tools for climate, nature, and development action.

Our data and tools help governments, researchers, international organisations, civil society, and the private sector to understand and advance effective climate policies and deploy climate finance. Harnessing data science and AI – including pioneering applications of natural language processing in this field – we make previously unstructured, siloed data easier to find, understand, and act on.

We are a team of policy experts, engineers, data scientists, product thinkers, communicators, and operators. We care deeply about how we work – our values, culture, and ways of collaborating – as well as what we build. As part of that, we have embraced a flexible, hybrid approach to work, including a four-day workweek.

Roles and responsibilities

Climate Policy Radar's engineering org is split into a few functional teams: programmes (domain experts), platform (high-quality data sharing), application (user-facing tools), and data science (models and evaluation). Despite those splits, most of our work is cross-functional.

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join our Application team. In this role you will work with our Product Managers to create new features, improve our existing system, and design scalable solutions that will serve our growing user base. 

Some of our priorities for 2026 that you could work on:  

• Helping us grow from a database to a data aggregator by improving our data import capabilities, including bringing in a new CMS

• Laying the groundwork to make our core product multilingual in 2027 (French, Spanish & Portuguese), to open up information across linguistic boundaries 

• Improving the search engine in our core product to help people find what they are looking for

• Incorporating GenAI and RAG into our core product to enable move us from search engine to evidence synthesis (e.g., summaries, Q&A, comparisons)

• Sharing our data and services externally (e.g., via APIs) so that others can build upon our work

 

Tech Stack:

• APIs & backend: Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL

• Data & infrastructure: Snowflake, Docker, AWS (ECS, S3, etc.), Pulumi, Prefect, GitHub Actions

• Search: Vespa

• Data Science: PyTorch, Huggingface, Pydantic AI, Pandas, Spacy, Weights & Biases

You bring with you:

You have enthusiasm for:

• Building and deploying backend services that are consumed by other teams, products, or external partners

• Working with AWS services and cloud infrastructure

• Software engineering best practices: requirements gathering, code review, testing, version control, documentation

• Designing scalable, maintainable backend systems

• Collaborating with Product and domain experts to solve meaningful problems

 

It would be a bonus if you had familiarity with:

• Search Indexes

• Generative AI

• Devops and Observability

We are looking for candidates with significant experience in highly collaborative cross-functional teams, excitement about working in a startup/scaleup environment and all that brings. 

We are a mission driven organisation, and work best with people who have strong alignment with our values. We care about them deeply.

We actively encourage applicants from diverse and historically underrepresented backgrounds. Not sure if you tick all the boxes but feel like you align with our values, are excited about working in Climate Change and AI and have the potential to do well in the role? Click apply! We’d love to hear from you.

Salary and Benefits:

• Salary: Up to £90k - 100k pa DOE

• A deep commitment to employee wellbeing, including policies such as 4 day workweek (same pay, Fridays off), unlimited annual leave, and a wellbeing allowance

• A vibrant, collaborative, empathetic work culture that thrives on innovation and the impact of our work

• Hybrid work environment (2 days a week) in London at TechSpace Goswell Road, near the Barbican. We welcome conversations about flexibility and remote work to accommodate individual needs

Interview process

We know that applying for a new job can be full of uncertainties - and we aim to reduce those by communicating clearly. Our process is made of several stages (see below). After each stage, we’ll contact you as soon as we can and no longer than 2 working days, to let you know if you will be progressing to the next stage.

If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during the process of application and selection, please let us know.

Process:

1. 30-60 minute screening call with our recruiter

2. 60 minute remote behavioural interview with two team members

3. Technical skills:

   1. 90 minute remote paired coding task

   2. 60 minute remote system design task

4. 30 minute in-person final fit interview with CEO and Head of People (and opportunity to meet the team - not a part of the interview, but gives you the opportunity to get to know the team and learn more about us in an informal setting)

5. Offer subject to references

Right to Work in the UK

Unfortunately, we are currently unable to sponsor work visas. Only applicants legally authorised to work in the UK will be considered.

Equal opportunities

At Climate Policy Radar, We are committed to fostering a workplace that is inclusive and equitable. Climate Policy Radar welcomes applicants from all backgrounds and does not tolerate discrimination in any aspect of employment. We actively work to ensure equal opportunities for all, regardless of heritage, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, relationship choices, or criminal history, in line with legal requirements. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, in line with legal requirements.

Not sure if you tick all the boxes but feel like you align with our values, are excited about working in Climate Change and AI and have the potential to do well in the role? Click apply! We’d love to hear from you.