Senior Software Engineer (Backend, Data & AI)

Permanent, full-time role in our office at 80 Strand, London (this is not a remote role)

We're looking for a hands-on, backend focused engineer to help us build AI enabled research and intelligence tools.

Kendal is a boutique strategic communications and advisory firm. We help clients understand and navigate complex reputational, political, regulatory and commercial situations. Research and intelligence are central to that work, and we are developing technology to strengthen how we collect and use information.

We now need someone who can take ownership of the engineering. This means connecting information sources, designing databases, building reliable processing workflows and turning concepts into secure, usable systems.

The opportunity

You will work closely with our AI & Digital analyst and senior advisers to build tools that collect information from agreed sources, organise and analyse it, and help analysts identify and assess relevant developments.

Our analyst will focus on product requirements, sources, detection criteria, prompts, evaluation of AI outputs and elements of the interface.

Your primary responsibility will be the data infrastructure, backend, reliability, security and deployment.

This is a hands-on role with meaningful technical ownership. You will help shape the architecture and engineering approach, while working directly with the people who will use what you build.

What you'll do

• Build data integrations and ingestion pipelines. Connect APIs, RSS feeds and other authorised sources; manage scheduled collection, updates, rate limits, duplicate records and failures.
• Design and implement databases. Develop data models, entity matching and deduplication, preserving source evidence and making information straightforward to retrieve and review.
• Develop backend services and AI-enabled workflows. Connect data collection, analysis, storage, structured LLM extraction, detection rules and human review into working applications.
• Implement transparent detection logic. Translate defined criteria into configurable rules and ensure users can understand why information has been flagged.
• Implement security and access controls. Manage authentication, permissions, credentials, audit records and appropriate protections for sensitive information.
• Deploy and maintain reliable systems. Establish version control, automated testing, deployment processes, logging, monitoring, backups, recovery procedures and documentation.
• Make pragmatic technical decisions: Balance a focused first version with maintainability, operating costs and a sensible route to expansion.

What we’re looking for

You should have:

• Strong Python or TypeScript skills. Both would be useful, but depth in one matters more than superficial familiarity with everything.
• Strong SQL and PostgreSQL experience, including data modelling and working with inconsistent or imperfect data. Supabase experience would be helpful.
• Experience integrating external APIs and building dependable data-processing workflows.
• Practical competence in Git, automated testing, deployment, authentication and data security.
• Evidence of taking an application beyond a prototype: shipping and supporting an application or internal system.

Some full stack capability would be valuable, but front-end development is not the main gap we are hiring to fill.

Experience integrating LLM APIs or building research, search, monitoring or intelligence applications would also be useful. This is not primarily a prompt engineering role, and we are not looking for someone to train foundation models.

How you'll work

You should enjoy working in a small team and explaining technical decisions clearly to colleagues who are not engineers.

We want someone who asks good questions, challenges unnecessary complexity and is honest about what is ready, what needs testing and where additional expertise is required.

You should be comfortable helping turn a research problem into a technical specification rather than waiting for a fully defined list of development tasks.

You do not need a background in communications or advisory. What matters is your engineering judgement and interest in the problems we are trying to solve.

The position is based in our London office. Working alongside our analysts and advisers is an important part of the role.

Why Kendal?

You will have the opportunity to help establish a new technical capability, influence how it develops and see your work used on real assignments.

We are looking for a permanent colleague who wants to build and improve useful systems over time.