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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Lead Software Engineer / Technical Lead - **Company:** SOJO - **Location:** London, UK - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** £70,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** JavaScript (Programming Language), Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, BigQuery, Cloud Computing, Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements), Software Debugging, DevOps, Python (Programming Language), MongoDB, Next.js, Software Engineering, TypeScript, Transport Layer Security, GitHub Copilot, ReactJS, Large Language Models, Backend, Fastapi, Data Pipelines - **Published:** July 11, 2026 - **Apply:** https://uk.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=c167b1b5784ad53a ## About the Role Essential * A minimum of 5 years' professional software engineering experience. * Strong hands-on full-stack experience with Python and JavaScript/TypeScript. * Comfortable owning both back-end (FastAPI or similar) and front-end (React) development. * Solid DevOps and cloud infrastructure experience, ideally on AWS. * Experience and proficiency using AI coding tools (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot). * A track record of making architectural decisions and owning systems end to end. * Confident working independently - happy to be the person who decides how things get built and takes responsibility for delivery. * Pragmatic and delivery-focused, and comfortable in a fast-moving startup environment. * Based within commuting distance of London (Stoke Newington), able to work on-site 3+ days per week, and available to start by 1st August 2026. Nice to have * Previous startup experience - ideally at an early-stage or scale-up company (strongly preferred). * Experience building LLM/AI features in production - agents, vision, or RAG. * Data / analytics engineering experience (dbt, BigQuery, Airbyte, Metabase). * Headless CMS (PayloadCMS/Next.js) and MongoDB experience. * E-commerce or payments experience., * Software Engineering: 5 years (required) ## Description We're looking for a hands-on Lead Software Engineer to take technical ownership of the SOJO platform. This is the technical lead for our product: you'll make the architectural calls, write the code, own the infrastructure and shape where our technology goes next. It's a broad, end-to-end role with genuine autonomy. You'll touch every layer of the stack - from the customer-facing booking flow, to the data pipeline, to the AI features we're rolling out. You'll work directly with our leadership team, who set the business goals; how we deliver them is yours to own. You'll be our senior technical decision-maker from day one, with the opportunity to shape and grow the engineering team as we scale. This role suits a strong, pragmatic builder who wants ownership and breadth over narrow specialism - someone happy to be the person the business trusts to get things built and keep them running. This is an immediate requirement. We need someone in post as soon as possible and no later than 1 August 2026, so we're prioritising candidates who are available to start quickly. What you'll do * Own the platform end to end - architect, build, deploy and maintain a production system serving 10,000+ customers. * Make the technical decisions - choose the frameworks, data models and infrastructure that turn business goals into working product. * Build across the full stack - Python and JavaScript/TypeScript, with React on the front end and FastAPI on the back end (PayloadCMS/Next.js, MongoDB). * Own cloud infrastructure and DevOps - AWS (EC2, RDS, Lambda, ECS, App Runner, Amplify), monitoring, SSL and reliability. * Maintain and develop the data pipeline - end-to-end ownership across Airbyte, dbt, BigQuery and Metabase. * Lead AI/ML feature development - customer-facing booking assistants (text and vision), studio triage vision tooling and AI-assisted customer service. * Own security and GDPR compliance across the platform. * Provision and manage all physical technology hardware across the business. * Keep the platform stable and performant - triage, debug and resolve production issues. * Shape the technical roadmap and help build out the engineering team as the company grows. ## Related Videos - [Shipping Faster with Less: Render on Cloud Hosting, AI Workloads, and the Future of DevOps](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1894-shipping-faster-with-less-render-on-cloud-hosting-ai-workloads-and-the-future-of-devops) - [Developing the Backend with Stefan Lingler, CTO at Shpock](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100360-developing-the-backend-with-stefan-lingler-cto-at-shpock) - [Intro to FastAPI](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/462-intro-to-fastapi) - [From DevOps to Scaled DevOps: How We’re Rebuilding Continuous Delivery as a Platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100018-from-devops-to-scaled-devops-how-we-re-rebuilding-continuous-delivery-as-a-platform) - [Nest.js - TypeScript in the backend can also be clean](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1033-nest-js-typescript-in-the-backend-can-also-be-clean) - [Building and Deploying Multi-Agent Systems with ADK and Vertex AI](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1918-building-and-deploying-multi-agent-systems-with-adk-and-vertex-ai) ## Related Articles - [Software Engineer Salary London](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/252-software-engineer-salary-london) - [Fully Remote Software Engineer Jobs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/447-fully-remote-software-engineer-jobs) - [Dev Digest 121 - AI goes offline](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/456-dev-digest-121-ai-goes-offline) - [Find a Developer Job: 12 Best Job Sites For Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/165-find-a-developer-job-12-best-job-sites-for-developers) - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers) - [Fullstack Developer Salary UK](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/251-fullstack-developer-salary-uk)