Senior Staff Engineer- Full Stack (Node.js/TypeScript)

We build AI-powered dubbing and localization technology that lets content travel across languages at scale. At the core of our platform is a complex pipeline of microservices handling everything from speech recognition and machine translation to voice synthesis and final media output.

You will own significant parts of our backend, the orchestration layer that coordinates the entire dubbing pipeline, while collaborating closely with the product team on the editor used by dubbing specialists and linguists. You will drive architecture decisions, raise the technical bar across the team, and operate with a high degree of autonomy.

About Product & Technology

Product & Technology plays a pivotal role in aligning the organization with its strategic objectives and enhancing shareholder value. Product & Technology is responsible for establishing unified standards and governance practices throughout the company. Additionally, we oversee the development and maintenance of core applications essential for the seamless operation of various functions across the organization. We are committed to driving and executing future roadmaps that are in line with the overall strategic direction of RWS. 

With a global reach, Product & Technology provides support services to over 7500 end users worldwide. We take pride in managing the information security operation and safeguarding all our assets. Our core functions encompass Enterprise & Technical Architecture, Network & Voice, Infrastructure, Service Delivery, Service Operations, Data & Analytics, Security & Quality Compliance, Transformation, Application Development, Enterprise Platforms, With a dedicated team of over 500 staff, Product & Technology ensures a strong presence across all regions, enabling efficient and effective support to our global operations.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and evolve the backend services that orchestrate our end-to-end media processing pipeline.
• Build and maintain complex workflow logic that coordinates multiple specialised services across the dubbing lifecycle.
• Design and maintain integrations with a range of third-party services, building clean adapter layers that keep the core pipeline decoupled from any specific vendor.
• Collaborate with the product team to translate backend capabilities into usable features for editors and linguists.
• Contribute to API design, data modelling, and cross-service communication patterns.
• Participate in code review, architectural discussions, and technical roadmap planning.

Skills & Experience

Must have

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Production-grade expertise in TypeScript / JavaScript (Node.js), async patterns, performance, type safety at scale.
• Strong experience designing and building APIs (GraphQL, REST, or equivalent): schema or contract design, authorisation layers, real-time patterns such as subscriptions or webhooks.
• Solid SQL background in schema design, query optimisation, and migrations, with experience using at least one ORM or query builder.
• Experience designing and operating microservice architectures: service decomposition, inter-service communication, failure handling.
• Familiarity with binary RPC protocols (gRPC or equivalent) for service-to-service communication.
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS or equivalent): object storage, message queues, configuration management, in a production environment.
• Comfort working in containerised environments (Docker/Kubernetes), deploying and debugging services, not necessarily operating clusters.
• Strong observability instincts, able to trace issues across distributed systems using structured logs, traces, and metrics.
• Experience working directly with product teams and translating requirements into sound backend design.
• React / Next.js at a mid level, able to build and maintain product-facing features independently without needing frontend specialists for every UI task.
• GenAI-native engineering mindset, comfortable integrating LLMs into production services: prompt design, prompt management (versioning, evaluation, iteration), multi-step agent workflows, non-deterministic output handling, and LLM observability. Not a researcher, but someone who builds reliable software that orchestrates AI calls.
• Knowledge of ML concepts: model inference, embeddings, fine-tuning basics, and how models are served and consumed in production pipelines.
• AI-augmented development, using AI coding tools (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent) as a core part of the workflow. Able to direct, review, and take full ownership of AI-generated code. The leverage is expected, the judgement is non-negotiable.

Nice to have

• Python scripting experience, useful for tooling, data migration, and automation tasks.
• Go, as a significant portion of our microservices are written in it.
• Familiarity with workflow orchestration engines (Temporal or equivalent) for durable, long-running processes.
• Familiarity with state machines for modelling complex workflow lifecycles.
• Knowledge of media processing concepts: audio/video pipelines, codec handling, subtitle formats.
• Exposure to speech technologies: TTS, ASR, or audio manipulation.

How we work

We are a small, senior team that operates with a high degree of ownership. Engineers write their own stories, contribute to roadmap decisions, and help shape the direction of the product, not just implement what is handed to them. At this level, you are expected to identify problems early, contribute to solutions before they are fully defined, and actively make the team around you stronger.

What we don't expect

This is a backend-heavy full stack role. The majority of your time will be in backend services and pipeline architecture. On the frontend, we expect mid-level React/Next.js, enough to own features end-to-end without relying on a dedicated frontend engineer to get things done. What we expect across the board is strong instincts, the ability to move across service boundaries when needed, and the drive to leave things better than you found them.

Our purpose is to unlock global understanding. This means our work fundamentally recognizes the value of every language and culture. So, we celebrate difference, we are inclusive and believe that diversity makes us strong. We want every employee to grow as an individual and excel in their career. 

In return, we expect all our people to live by the values that unite us: to partner, putting clients fist and winning together, to pioneer, innovating fearlessly and leading with vision and courage, to progress, aiming high and growing through actions and to deliver, owning the outcome and building trust with our colleagues and clients.

RWS embraces DEI and promotes equal opportunity, we are an Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. RWS is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at RWS are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation. RWS will not tolerate discrimination based on any of these characteristics. 

RWS Values 

Get the 3Ps right – Partner, Pioneer, Progress – and we´ll Deliver together as RWS.

Recruitment Agencies: RWS Holdings PLC does not accept agency resumes.  Please do not forward any unsolicited resumes to any RWS employees.  Any unsolicited resume received will be treated as the property of RWS and Terms & Conditions associated with the use of such resume will be considered null and void.

#LI-DNP