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# Lead Software and Systems Development Engineer

- **Company:** Pure Resourcing Solutions
- **Location:** Norwich, UK
- **Experience:** Expert
- **Salary:** £65,000.0 - £85,000.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** C++ (Programming Language), Code Review, Linux, Systems Development Life Cycle, Qt (Software), Release Management, Software Engineering, Verification and Validation (Software), Git, SC Clearance, Containerization, Git Flow, Software Coding, Docker
- **Published:** October 7, 2026
- **Apply:** https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/lead-software-and-systems-development-engineer/57431561

## About the Role

* A strong software engineering background in C++ on Linux. Where Qt / GUI is a bonus
 * Setting up and improving software process: Git workflows, code review, testing, release management
 * An architecture-first, modular mindset
 * Containerisation, ideally Docker on Linux
 * Verification and validation experience, ideally on real-time or mission-critical software
 * A background in complex products, preferably in a regulated domain such as defence, aerospace, medical, automotive etc.
 * Some people leadership (formal or not) as well as technical leadership.
 * Happy with occasional UK and international travel.
 * Eligibility for SC clearance (don't need to hold it already
 * )

## Description

You'll lead software and systems within R&D. What's there works, but it has grown organically: lots of branches, everyone doing things slightly differently, an architecture built on older thinking. Your job is to bring structure without killing the pace. Define how code is written, reviewed, merged, tested and released. Then make it stick.
It's hands-on to start. The team is small right now, so you'll be writing code as well as setting direction, then building the team underneath you.
What you'll do

 * Own Git and repository governance across the department: branching, review, merging, releases
 * Drive a more modular architecture with clearly defined interfaces, so code can be reused across a product range
 * Bring in proper verification and validation at module level, not just at system level
 * Review others' code, with authority and diplomacy
 * Lead and mentor the software and systems team
 * Working closely with physicists, controls engineers and electronics engineers
 * Shape the technical roadmap: GUI stack, containerisation and, longer term, more connected, secure and updatable systems
 * Hand clean, validated, traceable work over to engineering for production
 * Hands-on coding: writing and shipping code yourself, though expect this to decrease in volume as the team grows, * You get to shape the next phase of how a department builds software
 * Interesting problems: real-time computation, sensor data, physics-heavy systems
 * A new role, not a backfill, with a team to build under you
 * A director who actively wants the change, rather than a "we'll modernise one day" setup