Lead Software Engineer

Our client are a leading UK provider of smart, sustainable heat-network solutions, specialising in end-to-end services for local authorities, housing associations, and private developers. With decades of experience, their expertise ranges from design and build through to operation, metering, billing, and optimisation. Their mission centres on driving energy efficiency, reducing carbon, and delivering reliable, affordable heat for residents.

How you'll spend your day

As a Lead Software Engineer, you'll take ownership of one of two delivery streams within a small, evolving engineering team. You'll provide technical leadership, guide day-to-day delivery, and act as the key liaison between engineering and non-technical stakeholders, without direct line management responsibilities.

You will:

• Lead one of two product/engineering streams, ensuring technical quality, delivery focus and strong communication with stakeholders.
• Rotate between streams every 2-3 months to promote knowledge sharing, avoid silos, and strengthen team resilience.
• Work hands-on across a varied technical stack, contributing to coding, solution design, and best engineering practice.
• Collaborate closely with product owners, BI developers, and software engineers to deliver secure, scalable and business-focused solutions.
• Support the move towards a more structured agile model, championing practices such as TDD and high-quality engineering standards., Should we both wish to proceed, we will submit your details to the client and be in touch regarding the outcome and any further steps.

The remote interview process for this client consists of:

• Stage 1 - 1-1.5 hour Pair Programming Exercise
• Stage 2 - 1 hour Technical Discussion
• Stage 3 - 1 hour interview with the hiring managers to discuss experience and focus on stakeholder engagement.

We're looking for a Lead Engineer who can balance strong technical capability with excellent communication and stakeholder engagement.

You'll bring:

• Solid hands-on experience in modern software engineering using React, TypeScript and AWS serverless technologies (Lambda, DynamoDB, S3, SQS).
• A willingness to learn new technologies - particularly Rust, which is increasingly central to the stack (no prior Rust experience needed).
• Experience working across the full lifecycle of software delivery in agile environments.
• Ability to work closely with product owners and business stakeholders, translating requirements into practical technical solutions.
• Strong engineering fundamentals, including TDD, clean architecture and best-practice development workflows.
• Desirable but not essential: Experience with Python, data engineering or data-focused workflows for collaboration with the data stream., * Python
• React
• TDD
• AWS
• Lambda
• DynamoDB
• SQS
• Typescript
• Rust