Please answer all the 10 questions attached to this job advertisement. Partially completed applications will not be considered for shortlisting.
Location Hybrid — based in Portsmouth, with home working. Typically two to three days a week on site. You'll need to be based in, or within commuting distance of, Portsmouth.
Contract: Fixed-term contract of employment, 1 October 2026 – 31 March 2027.
Hours: Part Time, 25 hours per week.
Salary £26,400 per year full-time equivalent (37.5 hours/week), pro rata.
* Interviews late August to early September.
Closes 21 August 2026, 23:59 UK London Time
About Zipcare
ZipCare is a UK technology company. Our platform helps families arrange, manage and pay for home care, and, we build automation and AI into the product to support the people doing the admin. https://www.zipcare.co.uk/
About the role
This is a hands-on delivery role, and it's entry-level. From day one you'll take a written brief and turn it into a working automation, alongside our engineering team.
You'll apply existing AI services, APIs and low-code automation tools to real operational problems: understanding how a process works today, finding where it breaks, and improving the logic, prompts and human-review steps until it's reliable enough to use. You'll build and test in a controlled environment using test data.
What you'll do
* Work from a delivery brief to understand a business process, who uses it, and what "good" looks like.
* Map the steps, the decision points, the exceptions, and the stages where a person must stay in control.
* Build and refine automations using our approved tools, AI APIs and workflow platforms.
* Test against edge cases and failures, record what breaks, and iterate on the evidence.
* Document your work — playbooks, implementation notes and test artefacts, so someone else can maintain it.
* Present finished work to the team and to external business audiences, explaining what it does and where its limits are.
* Gain experience in AI Engineering, Data & AI Operations, AI Integration in Business Processes, Responsible AI & Governance, and Deployment, Monitoring & Reliability.
How the work runs
Each piece of work starts with a written brief and a short kick-off conversation. Most of your week is building and testing. Once a week you walk the team through what works, what doesn't, and what you changed. Documentation is part of the job, not an afterthought.
What we're looking for
You can build working software, you pick up new tools quickly, and you want to apply that to real operational problems in a small team. We're hiring for capability and judgement, not years of experience.
Essential
* Practical coding and debug ability in JavaScript or TypeScript or similar, automation logic, REST APIs and integrations.
* Comfortable with Git and normal development workflows.
* Real, applied experience: work you've delivered in a commercial setting, on a placement, through an apprenticeship, or on a bootcamp/programme built around real business projects. You'll need to be able to talk us through it in detail.
* A clear communicator. You can explain technical work to non-technical people, and you raise problems early rather than late.
Desirable — any of these is a plus, none is required. Don’t worry if you haven’t used them — we’ll teach you along the way.
* AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex, Github Copilot or similar)
* Workflow automation or AI orchestration tools
* AI APIs or prompt engineering
* Low-code app builders
* App development in any framework (React Native, Flutter or similar)
Behaviours:
We look at how the work gets done as well as what gets delivered. For this role, that means:
Improving how things work. You suggest improvements on your own initiative, use technology to get an efficient result, and account for accessibility and everyone who will use it.
Deciding on evidence. You make fair decisions in good time, research or ask when unsure, weigh the options, costs and risks, and can explain how you got there.
Explaining your work. You write and speak clearly, pick the right channel for the audience, listen to views unlike your own, and handle questions and hard conversations well.
Looking out for the team. You share what you learn beyond your team, help keep a workplace free of mistreatment where challenge is heard, and support colleagues’ wellbeing and your own.
Growing. You identify the gaps in your own skills, set development objectives and meet them, seek out learning, and listen to feedback on how you are doing.
Setting an example. You take pride in the work, understand where your responsibility runs and how your actions land on others, and give credit to colleagues where it is due.
Getting things finished. You stay focused on the outcome despite setbacks, check progress against what was agreed and correct course, and follow the policies and law that apply.
What we offer
* Statutory annual leave, pro rata
* Workplace pension
* Access to the software and AI tool accounts you need
* You'll spend around 15% of your time on learning and development.
* Structured mentoring from experienced tech-sector professionals and academic researchers.
* A portfolio of real, deployed work, and the chance to present it to regional employers for career development.
* Opportunity to present completed work to regional employers to improve your employability at the end of employment.
How we select
We use a portfolio-based approach: applicants are assessed on the real work they've produced, not on CVs alone. We'll ask you to share examples of solutions you've built or delivered in a real setting and to talk us through your approach , the problem, the decisions you made, and what you learned. We're looking for evidence of practical capability and sound judgement.
You must have the right to work in the UK. The role includes standard confidentiality and intellectual-property terms. We may appoint more than one person from this process, and we may close applications early if we receive a high volume of applications.
Inclusion
We welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Women are significantly under-represented in technical roles and we particularly encourage women to apply. We also welcome people who don't see themselves reflected in typical tech job ads.
Pay: £26,400.00 per year
Application question(s):
- This role is hybrid — two to three days a week on site in Portsmouth. Can you work on that basis? (Required)
- Describe a bug or failure you tracked down on your own. What was breaking, how did you work out why, and what did you change? Tell us what you used to find it. Roughly 150–250 words. (Required)
- How do you work with other people's code? Branches, pull requests, code review, CI — whatever you've actually used. If you've only worked solo, say that and tell us how you kept track of changes. Two or three sentences. (Required)
- Which of these have you used, even a little? JavaScript, TypeScript, REST APIs and integrations, Git, AI coding assistants such as Claude Code or Copilot, Workflow automation or AI orchestration tools, AI APIs or prompt engineering, Low-code app builders, React Native or Flutter or similar, None of these yet, Other. (Required)
- Tell us about one thing you've built that other people actually used . What was it, who used it, and what did you personally build? Tell us what it was written in and what it talked to — languages, APIs, integrations. If it broke or didn't work first time, say so; we're more interested in what you did next. Where was this work done? A placement or internship/An apprenticeship/A programme or bootcamp built around real business requirements/Job/Other. Where can we see it ? A repo, a live URL, a demo video, a Drive folder of screenshots. If it's under NDA or internal, put "not public" in the answer below and describe what you'd show us instead. Roughly 250 words. If you worked in a team, be clear about your part and about theirs. (Required)
- Why this role, and why now? What draws you to the role specifically? 100 words is plenty. (Required)
- The experience most relevant to this role. Up to three roles, most relevant first. For each one, start with the job title, organisation and dates. Then describe what you did in one or two lines, using this structure: Achieved [X], as measured by [Y], by doing [Z].
For example: cut invoice processing from six hours a week to two, by building a script that pulled the data straight from the finance API. If you don't have a number, say what changed and how you knew it had. Resume/CV: One page plus any transcripts, PDF, under 10MB. We do read it, alongside your answers above. Please write your bullet points in the experience section in the same way — achieved [X], as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]. (Required)
- Education and training. One per line, most recent first, in this format:
Qualification · subject · institution · year completed or expected.
Upload your transcript along with resume, if you have one
Include any apprenticeship or bootcamp you completed that was built around real business processes or requirements —
for example: Level 4 Software Developer apprenticeship · Company Name · 2024.
Upload your transcript along with resume, if you have one
If none of this applies, write "none" — it isn't a requirement for this role. (Required)
- Link to your 3-minute video. Record and paste the link below. Loom is free and works in a browser; an unlisted YouTube link also works. Please open your link in a private browsing window before submitting — permission-locked links are the most common problem we see. Talk to camera, unscripted, about the piece of work you described in one thing you've built question. 1. Who you are, briefly (~20 sec); 2. How you worked with other people on it — who else was involved, how you split it up, and where you disagreed or got stuck (~60 sec); 3. What you ended up producing — show it on screen if you can (~60 sec); 4. What you learned, and what you'd do differently now (~40 sec).
We're not assessing production quality, accent, background, or how confident you look on camera.
Your recording stays in your own account . Please delete it yourself once you've heard the outcome. (Required)
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Portsmouth PO1
