Meet the BBC iPlayer team, where diversity leads to creativity

Diversity and inclusion are key ambitions for the BBC, as it attempts to represent as fully as possible the audiences it serves. In this blog, Producer Adaobi Ifeachor explains how the Design and Engineering division are working hard to increase the breadth of applicants it sees applying for roles at the BBC, starting with the behind the scenes video below on BBC iPlayer.

From UX designers to testers, from website developers to engineers; there are a variety of digital roles involved in making products like BBC iPlayer and the BBC News website. The trouble is, these roles may appear relatively hidden, compared to other well-known positions in the company. The BBC has such a strong reputation in journalism, TV drama and radio – tell someone that you work at the BBC, and they’ll probably assume that you’re part of those teams. But, is it the destination that springs to mind when people begin to plan their next career steps in tech?

We’d like to make sure that it is.

In April, the BBC unveiled its five year Diversity and Inclusion strategy. It stressed that creativity is the lifeblood of the BBC, allowing us to reach our audiences in new, innovative and distinctive ways. But, if we’re to stand-out as an industry innovator, we need to employ staff with the widest possible range of experiences, talent and ideas. Put another way, it’s important that our workforce reflect the diversity of Britain.

Currently, 27.2% of staff in BBC Design and Engineering are women, 16.7% are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and 4.9% are people with disabilities. Whilst the makeup of our tech teams beat the industry averages, there’s still some work to do.

So, with the goal of increasing applications from minority groups, we’re going to ‘pull back the curtain’ and show what it’s really like to work in a technical division at the BBC. We’ve begun by planning a series of short videos to introduce the teams behind some of our digital products - the first of which you can watch at the top of this blog, based around BBC iPlayer.

We want people to understand the central message: ‘we hire on merit and we may have a place for you. So get in touch’. But, with each video, it’s been challenging attempting to strike a balance. We’ve tried to show how flexible the BBC is as an employer, without painting an unrealistic picture of adjustments that can be made on a case-by-case basis.

We’ve also tried to show the range of opportunities that can come up beyond the usual day-to-day project tasks. For example, while working with BBC News Labs, Developer Tamsin Green recently returned from a business trip to Lagos, Nigeria. They were presenting a challenge to developers to create a World Service app for African audiences at CC-Hub – a social innovation start-up incubator which offers workspaces to new businesses and holds networking events.

The News Labs team shared strategies for growing mobile audiences and innovative ways of working with content. Tamsin had only just joined the BBC on a graduate scheme that has seen her spend time with a number of different digital teams in London, in addition to her time in Africa.

Beyond graduate schemes, like Tamsin’s, we have roles available right now in our Design and Engineering division. We’re looking for candidates with experience of software engineering best practices with a strong emphasis on delivering quality products, including Test Driven Development (TDD), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and Agile methodologies.

We want to hear from people who can adapt to different technologies, are good problem solvers and can collaborate with multiple disciplines to deliver great digital products. People who’ve worked with cloud computing products such as AWS or Microsoft Cloud should also get in touch.

To learn more about our division you can visit the BBC Careers website. Or, for more information about the opportunities on offer and details about upcoming Diversity and Inclusion recruitment events, please follow BBC Careers on Twitter. Also, do let us know which BBC tech teams you’d like to learn more about.