Lead Software Engineer

As Lead Software Engineer, you’ll take technical ownership of teams building modern, AI-powered applications. You’ll be the engineering lead - setting direction on architecture and standards, guiding the team through complex challenges, and acting as the senior technical voice with clients.

This isn’t a management-only role. You’ll remain hands-on, contributing to design and development alongside your team, whilst also coaching and developing the engineers around you., * Lead teams designing, building, testing, and maintaining high-quality software applications

• Take technical ownership of products - including architecture, estimation, planning, and requirements
• Drive integration of AI and ML capabilities, including prompt engineering, model evaluation, and RAG pipelines
• Work with Microsoft Azure AI services (Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Foundry, Cognitive Services) or equivalent platforms
• Champion software development best practices - XP, TDD, CI/CD - including for ML/AI workloads
• Engage directly with clients, communicating technical concepts and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Manage, coach, and develop junior team members, supporting their performance and career growth
• Contribute to knowledge sharing within the team and broader engineering community, * Strong expertise in Python or C#/.NET, with a track record of building scalable, secure, modern applications

• Proven experience leading engineering teams and taking technical ownership of software products end to end
• Hands-on experience with AI/ML-powered product development - model integration, prompt engineering, RAG, or evaluation pipelines
• Experience with Microsoft Azure AI services or equivalent cloud AI platforms
• Expertise across the full application stack - API design, data pipelines, and front-end integration
• Experience with CI/CD practices, including for ML/AI workloads (model versioning, experiment tracking, automated evaluation)
• A genuine commitment to developing people - coaching and mentoring junior engineers

Desirable

• Experience with the Microsoft agent ecosystem - Copilot Studio, Semantic Kernel, Microsoft 365 Agents SDK, or Agent Framework
• Knowledge of responsible AI practices - content filtering, PII handling, bias testing, and governance of autonomous agent actions
• Familiarity with vector databases, search indices, or multiple programming languages and storage technologies

• Salary negotiable - based on your experience, discussed openly at first conversation
• Fully flexible working arrangement - office attendance is entirely optional
• A genuine investment in your growth, with access to learning, development, and career progression opportunities
• Work on technically ambitious programmes with real-world impact

Interested?

If this sounds like the right move, we’d like to hear from you. Get in touch with Colin directly at

This is a confidential search on behalf of a leading technology consultancy with a strong track record of delivering complex digital transformation programmes across the UK and beyond. They work across sectors including healthcare, public services, and enterprise - building software that has a genuine impact on people’s lives.

They have built a culture where engineers are empowered, ideas are valued, and career growth is actively supported. If you want to work somewhere that takes technical excellence seriously and invests in its people, this is worth your attention.