Lead Software Engineer

Client Services Consultant @ Albion Blake | Engaging Technical Talent

Title: Lead Software Engineer / Technical Lead

Location: Manchester / Leeds / Newcastle

Contract: 12 months

IR35: In scope

Clearance: BPSS (must be eligible for SC)

The Role

We are looking for a Technical Lead / Lead Software Engineer to take a pivotal role on one of the UK’s most high-profile and impactful digital services, supporting millions of users nationwide.

This is a hands‑on leadership position within a mission‑critical digital environment that sits at the heart of public service delivery. The products you will help build and evolve are actively transforming how essential services are designed, delivered, and operated at national scale.

You will be joining during a period of significant technical transformation, including:

• Transitioning from monolithic architectures to microservices
• Increasing standardisation and consistency in engineering practices
• Building and evolving shared platform capabilities
• Aligning teams to a modern, cloud‑first technical strategy

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for your service or shared capability, aligned to and influencing wider strategy
• Lead, coach, and mentor engineers while remaining hands‑on
• Ensure delivery of secure, resilient, well‑assured, high‑quality services
• Champion engineering standards and best practice
• Assess and manage the impact of technical and architectural change
• Work effectively in a complex, multi‑disciplinary environment
• Maintain a clear understanding of how your work fits into the wider digital ecosystem

You will lead a team that either:

or

• Builds shared capabilities that enable teams to build, deploy, assure, and operate services effectively

You must have significant demonstrable experience in one or both of the following areas:

Option 1 – Software Engineering

• Hexagonal architecture
• Cloud infrastructure (AWS)
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
• CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins)
• Automation and DevOps best practices

Additionally, you will have:

• Strong experience leading engineering teams and providing technical leadership
• A solid grounding in secure design, version control, and assurance practices
• Experience sharing knowledge and good practice across engineering communities
• Proven delivery experience in complex environments with multiple stakeholders

*This role is part of Albion Blake’s client services consulting practice. All statutory EEO requirements are applied.*