# Senior Hands-On Technologist


> **URL:** https://www.gosmarter.ai/careers/senior-hands-on-technologist-2026/

**Date:** 2026-09-16



TL;DR: Nightingale HQ is hiring a senior hands-on technologist. You will help us build useful AI products, improve how we write and run software, and reduce the risk of too much technical knowledge sitting with one person. This is a remote-first UK role paying £55–65k. We are open to full-time, part-time, compressed hours, or another working pattern that fits the role. You must already have the right to work in the UK. We especially welcome applications from people based in Wales, where the company is based. If the application or interview process creates a barrier, tell us what would help.

## Who we are

Nightingale HQ builds technology that helps organisations use artificial intelligence (AI) and data in practical ways. GoSmarter.ai uses computer vision and other AI tools to make traceability and compliance simpler for metal manufacturers. Florence, our second product, helps companies turn AI strategy into realistic projects they can deliver.

We are a Wales-based, female-founder-led company, and we want Nightingale HQ to be a place where people can do great work without having to fit a narrow idea of what a "start-up person" looks like. That includes people from under-represented backgrounds in tech, people with non-traditional routes into the industry, and people who need work to fit around real life.

We try to make that real in how we work. We are a remote, distributed company. Most of us work from home or local co-working spaces. The development team is small and capable, but we do not expect people to be always on. We use clear priorities, useful documentation, sensible automation, and lightweight process so people can do good work without unnecessary pressure.

Steph Locke, co-founder, is our chief product officer and our only senior technologist currently. This role adds another strong technical person, making the company more resilient and able to grow. We are not looking for one perfect person who can do everything.

## Who you are

We are looking for a senior, hands-on technologist who can help us build useful AI products, improve how the team works, and make sound decisions when there is no perfect playbook. You will be a technical peer, not a lone hero or ticket machine.

### What matters most to us

What matters most is that you can build and improve production software. You can think through technical trade-offs, communicate clearly in a remote team, learn unfamiliar tools, and help others do better work. You do not need a computer science degree, a traditional career path, or to be brilliant at everything. We welcome different routes into tech. What matters is your judgement, evidence of learning, collaboration, and the quality of your work.

### What we'd like to see from you

You do not need to tick every box, but you will probably enjoy this role if most of this sounds like you:

- You are hands-on and have strong experience in at least one technical area. You also have enough breadth to work across the stack and enough confidence to learn new tools, languages, frameworks, or cloud platforms when needed.
- You care about building software well. That might include clean code, good tests, continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), infrastructure as code, sensible automation, useful documentation, and thoughtful use of AI tools.
- You want to understand the real problem before building a solution. You care about customer context, product judgement, debugging, and practical decisions as much as shipping code.
- You make the team stronger. You share knowledge, help others grow, ask for help when needed, and are comfortable working in a remote team where trust, clarity, and good communication matter.
- You want to stay close to the code, avoid unnecessary process, and work in a flatter environment. You are comfortable giving and receiving respectful challenge when it helps improve the products, the team, and the company.

In short: you can build useful things, think clearly, work well with others, and help us improve how we work.

## What working at Nightingale HQ looks like

### The fundamentals

- The pay bracket for this role is £55,000–65,000 per year. We know that will not be right for everyone, so we want to be upfront about it rather than waste anyone's time.
- You can shape your job title within reason, so it reflects the work you actually do and supports where you want your career to go next.
- You can work with us full-time, part-time, compressed hours, or another pattern that fits the role. Not everyone can work 35 or more hours a week in a standard pattern, and that is okay.
- This is a remote-first UK role. We need enough overlap with UK working hours for collaboration. You must already have the right to work in the UK, as we cannot sponsor visas for this role. We would ideally like someone to start before the end of the year, so we will discuss right-to-work and start-date constraints early in the process.

### Day to day

- We are remote-first with minimal travel expectations. If home is not always the best place for you to work, we can cover a nearby co-working space subscription.
- Most days, the only meetings are short chances to check in and connect with the team. Admin is kept light: keep your tickets and pull requests up to date and do the work well.
- You will own your schedule and have the flexibility to shape work around life where the role allows. Output, connection, and communication matter more than always being online.

### Tech

- We can provide a laptop, support a bring-your-own-device setup where that works securely, and provide additional hardware or accessibility-related equipment where it helps you do your best work.
- Today, you are most likely to come across Azure, Netlify, Azure SQL Database, Supabase, containerised APIs in Azure Container Apps, .NET, Python, React, TypeScript, Hugo, Azure AI, and Zuplo. You do not need to have used this exact stack before. We are sharing it so you understand the kind of environment you would join, not because we expect a perfect keyword match.
- We are an AI company, and we use AI in our own work. We use it carefully and practically, both for ourselves and for our customers. We invest in AI and non-AI tools when they help us do better work, faster.

### Other benefits

- You will get paid holiday, your birthday off, and usually extra time off between Christmas and New Year. We will explain during the process which parts are contractual and which parts are discretionary.
- You will get a dedicated learning budget for things that help you grow. This could include conferences, online courses, books, communities, or specialist tools.
- We will be upfront about which benefits are fixed, flexible, or still developing. If equity or other perks are important to you, talk to us. We would rather discuss what matters than expect one package to work for everyone.

## What the recruitment process looks like

Here is how we plan to run recruitment. We want the process to give people a fair chance to show how they think, work, and communicate. Tell us if there is anything we can do to make any stage more accessible or useful for you. This might include captions, a different video platform, questions or context in advance, extra time, breaks, written follow-up, or another adjustment that removes a barrier. You do not need to share personal or medical details. We ask because this is part of how we want to work with people, not a special favour or an exception.

| Stage | Timing | What happens | What helps you stand out |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Application review and shortlisting | Rolling process | We will review applications and CVs and shortlist candidates as applications come in. | A short cover letter or extra CV section can help, but it is not required. Use it if you want to respond directly to the "who you are" points and show how you think. Examples can include public links, anonymised work, short write-ups, architecture notes, case studies, or a brief explanation of work that cannot be shared publicly. Focus on impact: what changed because of your work, who it helped, and why it mattered. |
| Introductory conversation | End of September 2026 | We will invite up to 10 people for a 30-minute conversation. | This is a chance to ask questions and check whether the role, expectations, working style, and environment feel right on both sides before anyone invests more time. |
| Founder conversation | First week of October 2026 | Up to five people will spend an hour with the founders, and possibly someone else from the team. | We will use this conversation to understand how you think, what kind of environment helps you do your best work, and whether the role and working style are likely to work well for both sides. |
| Pair-programming session | Second week of October 2026 | For our top two or three candidates, we will run a two-hour pair-programming session with someone from the development team. | You will work on a problem that is like the work you would do day to day. Bring the tools and ways of working you prefer. We are interested in how you think and collaborate. We are not trying to catch you out or test how much you already know about our current tech stack. |
| Offer | By end of October 2026 | We will make an offer to the person we think can make a strong difference to our products, our team, and how we work together. | We are looking for someone who can contribute technically, collaborate well, and strengthen how the team works. |
| Joining and onboarding | Ideally by end of 2026 | The person joins us, gets onboarded, and tackles their first pull requests. | We will help you get into the codebase, tools, and team rhythms without expecting you to know everything on day one. |

## Our commitment to fair hiring

We recruit on merit and aim to run a fair, accessible process. We welcome people from different backgrounds, routes into tech, working patterns, and life circumstances. We make hiring decisions using evidence that is relevant to the role, and we aim to remove unnecessary barriers wherever we can.

We are especially keen to hear from candidates based in Wales. This is not a requirement, and all hiring decisions will be made on merit. Growing skilled jobs in Wales is part of the positive impact we want Nightingale HQ to have. It also supports the outcomes we are working towards through Welsh Government-backed programmes.

## How to apply

Send your CV, and a short note or cover letter if you would like to add one, to **jobs@nightingalehq.ai**.