Front End Engineer (NextJS)

About Us

We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum's unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website.  

Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.

We employ 900 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world.

Diversity and inclusion matter to us.

Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment.

We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.

About the role

The Museum’s Technology Solutions team is seeking an experienced Front-End Engineer to contribute to the delivery of high-quality, accessible digital products that bring the Museum’s collections and research to life for millions of online visitors each year. Working within a cross-functional product team, you will play a vital role in creating engaging user experiences that are performant, secure and inclusive.

You will collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and content authors to build, maintain and improve a wide range of websites and customer-facing web experiences. These products support public, internal and scientific audiences and are developed using a modern technology stack including React, Next.js, GraphQL, Tailwind and Azure Kubernetes. CI/CD pipelines are managed through GitLab, and you will contribute to a robust testing culture using tools like Cypress and Jest.

This role sits within a supportive, collaborative and inclusive team that encourages continuous learning and open knowledge sharing. You will help shape our development practices, contribute to system documentation, and participate in key product and platform decisions. You will also work alongside museum researchers, educators and scientists, gaining exposure to a wide variety of subject areas while helping to realise the Museum’s broader mission. Our hybrid working model encourages weekly in-person collaboration and supports a flexible, respectful team culture.

About you

You are a front-end engineer with experience building modern, component-driven applications using React and Next.js. You understand the importance of accessibility, performance and testing and bring practical knowledge of using tools such as Tailwind, Jest, Cypress and Storybook in a production environment. You are familiar with CI/CD pipelines, Git-based workflows and collaborative software development practices.

You are comfortable writing tests, updating documentation and reviewing code. You participate actively in team ceremonies such as stand-ups, demos and retrospectives, and you know when to ask questions or surface risks.

You value working with others and are motivated by delivering software that has real-world impact. You are eager to learn from your teammates and to support their learning in turn. You approach challenges with curiosity and persistence and bring a respectful, inclusive attitude to your work. Above all, you are drawn to the opportunity to use your skills in a mission-driven setting that combines public engagement, scientific exploration and digital innovation.

Thriving at the Museum: the way we work

We are proud to work at the Museum and have identified the qualities we all need to embody to reach our shared ambition. This sits alongside the Museum’s values and forms the framework for the way we work.

Find out more here

What we offer

• 27.5 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays (full time equivalent)
• Generous defined contribution Natural History Museum Pension Scheme (employer contribution 4 - 10%)
• Season ticket, bicycle and rental loan
• Life insurance
• Free admission to our exhibitions and many other paid exhibitions at museums, galleries and institutions across London and the UK.
• Staff discount at our Museum shops and cafes
• We offer a wide variety of training initiatives and opportunities to build skills. Investing in staff development is important to us, and we are ambitious about helping staff to grow and fulfil their potential.
• Affordable membership to the Civil Service Sports Council which offers a range of benefits including an extensive list of special offers and reduced entry fees at a selection of cinema chains, theme parks, theatres, retailers and supermarkets. It also provides entry to up to 300 English Heritage sites and other national treasures. For more details, visit https://www.cssc.co.uk
• Membership to our Sports and Social Association (for a small fee), which includes access to our in-house gym and clubs such as football, softball, table tennis and tennis and classes in Middle Eastern dance, yoga and Tai Chi

Hybrid working

We are working towards a vision where both people and planet thrive, and nothing gives a greater connection with this, than seeing first-hand, the visitors, scientific research and collections that all of our work is inspired by and working side by side with the teams delivering the visitor experience and events.  We also recognise the benefits and flexibility that hybrid working brings. We operate a hybrid working model that requires regular, weekly attendance for this role, with the precise pattern of days on site and worked from home to be agreed with your manager.