Senior Data Manager

Introduction

The BBC has been serving audiences online for more than 20 years. Across key products including BBC iPlayer, BBC News and BBC Sport, BBC Weather, bbc.co.uk and now BBC Sounds, we entertain, educate and inform audiences in their millions every day.

But behind the scenes, however, we have work to do. We are making the shift from being a broadcaster that speaks to our audiences to being a service that is shaped by them and designed around their wants and needs. We are creating personalised products and services that bring the right content, to the right people, at the right times – a personalised BBC. It will be our greatest leap since iPlayer, and that’s why it is right at the top of our agenda.

Delivering it is going to require a fundamental reshaping of the BBC’s culture and how we work. For the new Content Metadata workstream in our Content Production Workflows department, the first task is a ground-up rethink of our approaches to describing and classifying all of our content — journalism, audio, video and digital alike.

This means asking ourselves some big questions: What metadata do we need to deliver a personalised BBC? What does the future of tagging at the BBC look like? Importantly, as we increasingly move into subjective metadata, we also have to ask ourselves policy questions: what would it mean for us to say some programmes are “scary”? What is the difference between Fleabag and Mrs Brown’s Boys, when the metadata tells us they are both “Sitcoms”?

Working with the Editorial and Technical leads on Common Metadata, the Data Manager will help to answer these questions and ask more like them

Interview process

Virtual interview – approx. 90 min (set up 2 hours).

The candidate will be provided the questions and a task to prepare in advanced to the interview. The interview will include questions about BBC values, soft and technical skills. 

Responsibilities

Assist in the ongoing software development and maintenance of the BBC’s content metadata tooling

Interrogate and query data to aid business insight, validate workflows, and identify issues.

Extend existing data models, taxonomies, vocabularies and other data structures.

Manage user access, control permissions, privileges and provide on-going assistance .

Assist in the development and maintenance of data standards, including adherence to data management, information security and privacy policies.

Create and maintain data related documentation, including data definitions, lineage maps and rules.

Aid the design and development of databases and data infrastructure.

Are you the right candidate

We focus on hiring for potential at the BBC, so the main requirement for the position is a strong technical mindset.

Some of the things we love:

Experience with Python and client-side JavaScript, HTML and CSS and their use in developing lightweight web-based data management applications

Familiarity with SQL and/or SPARQL database querying and relational data models

Familiarity with AWS cloud software management and deployment

Experience of modern software development practices, ideally in the field of data management

Knowledge of data modelling and appreciation of different data structures and their benefits and limitations under particular use cases 

Desirable

Computer Science or related degree, or equivalent industry experience

Experience with Github for version control

Familiarity with agile or other rapid application development methods

Experience of using Tableau client and server

Experience working with controlled vocabularies or ontologies/taxonomies, ideally applied to the media industry 

Excellent communication skills and passionate about metadata

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons 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.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. 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.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.

Introduction

The BBC has been serving audiences online for more than 20 years. Across key products including BBC iPlayer, BBC News and BBC Sport, BBC Weather, bbc.co.uk and now BBC Sounds, we entertain, educate and inform audiences in their millions every day.

But behind the scenes, however, we have work to do. We are making the shift from being a broadcaster that speaks to our audiences to being a service that is shaped by them and designed around their wants and needs. We are creating personalised products and services that bring the right content, to the right people, at the right times – a personalised BBC. It will be our greatest leap since iPlayer, and that’s why it is right at the top of our agenda.

Delivering it is going to require a fundamental reshaping of the BBC’s culture and how we work. For the new Content Metadata workstream in our Content Production Workflows department, the first task is a ground-up rethink of our approaches to describing and classifying all of our content — journalism, audio, video and digital alike.

This means asking ourselves some big questions: What metadata do we need to deliver a personalised BBC? What does the future of tagging at the BBC look like? Importantly, as we increasingly move into subjective metadata, we also have to ask ourselves policy questions: what would it mean for us to say some programmes are “scary”? What is the difference between Fleabag and Mrs Brown’s Boys, when the metadata tells us they are both “Sitcoms”?

Working with the Editorial and Technical leads on Common Metadata, the Data Manager will help to answer these questions and ask more like them

Interview process

Virtual interview – approx. 90 min (set up 2 hours).

The candidate will be provided the questions and a task to prepare in advanced to the interview. The interview will include questions about BBC values, soft and technical skills. 

Responsibilities

Assist in the ongoing software development and maintenance of the BBC’s content metadata tooling

Interrogate and query data to aid business insight, validate workflows, and identify issues.

Extend existing data models, taxonomies, vocabularies and other data structures.

Manage user access, control permissions, privileges and provide on-going assistance .

Assist in the development and maintenance of data standards, including adherence to data management, information security and privacy policies.

Create and maintain data related documentation, including data definitions, lineage maps and rules.

Aid the design and development of databases and data infrastructure.

Are you the right candidate

We focus on hiring for potential at the BBC, so the main requirement for the position is a strong technical mindset.

Some of the things we love:

Experience with Python and client-side JavaScript, HTML and CSS and their use in developing lightweight web-based data management applications

Familiarity with SQL and/or SPARQL database querying and relational data models

Familiarity with AWS cloud software management and deployment

Experience of modern software development practices, ideally in the field of data management

Knowledge of data modelling and appreciation of different data structures and their benefits and limitations under particular use cases 

Desirable

Computer Science or related degree, or equivalent industry experience

Experience with Github for version control

Familiarity with agile or other rapid application development methods

Experience of using Tableau client and server

Experience working with controlled vocabularies or ontologies/taxonomies, ideally applied to the media industry 

Excellent communication skills and passionate about metadata

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons 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.

We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. 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.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.

To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here.

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