Full Stack Developer

Nudge Education is a national intervention service for children that are chronically disengaged from education.

We are hopeful that the tailored and bespoke interventions that we design and deliver will help to re-engage thousands of children across the country in the coming years.

We are seeking a Full Stack Developer to join our team. This role will involve working on a platform that directly supports our work with vulnerable young people and holds education, health, safeguarding and other sensitive information. Safeguarding, confidentiality and the careful handling of children's data are fundamental requirements of the role and an important part of how we define good engineering at Nudge Education.

Requirements:

Essential

• Solid commercial experience with React and TypeScript, with a preference for explicit types that stay closely aligned with the database schema rather than relying on any.
• Strong SQL and relational modelling skills. You should be able to read an existing schema, identify potential problems, and write safe, reviewed migrations you would be comfortable running in production.
• Experience building and consuming APIs, including validation, authentication, authorisation, error handling and predictable behaviour.
• Comfortable working with a server-first approach. We use server components wherever possible, with client components only where they are genuinely needed, and data fetching structured around appropriate suspense boundaries.
• Experience working within established UI patterns and shared components. We use our own components for tables, modals, inputs and other interface elements, and use design tokens rather than hardcoded values.
• A strong approach to accessibility. Accessibility is a requirement, not a follow-up task, particularly because many of our users work on mobile devices, under pressure and sometimes with poor connectivity.
• Good judgement about engineering risk. You should understand the difference between a low-risk change that can be shipped quickly and a change that requires additional review, testing or a more careful release plan.
• Clear written communication. We value documented functions, useful design notes and comments that explain why a decision was made rather than simply repeating what the code does.
• A careful and responsible approach to working with sensitive children's data. This is a mandatory requirement of the role.

Useful, but not required

• Experience with Next.js App Router and React server components.
• Deeper Postgres experience, including indexes, query plans, performance and safe migrations on larger tables.
• Experience introducing or improving automated testing and CI practices.
• Experience building multi-tenant, role-based or feature-gated permission systems.
• Experience in education, health, social care or another regulated or sensitive domain.
• Experience working directly with AWS services.

Working with children's data - mandatory

This platform holds education, health, safeguarding and other sensitive information about vulnerable young people. Working responsibly with that data is a fundamental and mandatory part of this role.

You will be expected to:

• Apply data minimisation when designing features and deciding what information needs to be stored, processed or displayed.
• Treat access controls and permissions as a core engineering responsibility.
• Avoid unnecessary exposure of sensitive information in logs, test data, tooling or internal workflows.
• Handle production data carefully and follow agreed processes when investigating issues.
• Preserve auditability where actions or changes affect safeguarding, attendance, case records, finance or compliance.
• Raise concerns where an implementation could introduce unnecessary privacy, safeguarding or security risk.

A basic DBS check is required for this role.

Because the platform directly supports vulnerable young people, safeguarding, confidentiality and careful handling of their data are not optional. They are part of how we define good engineering at Nudge Education.

• Hybrid working
• 35 days' holiday
• Location: UK based. Depending on your location and business needs, you may be required to attend the Newcastle office 2-3 days per week.
• Salary: £37,500-£43,000
• Visa sponsorship: Not available for this role.

What the first three months look like will be discussed during the interview or induction process.

We comply with strict safeguarding policies and undertake thorough background checks in accordance with Safer Recruitment Practice.