Lead Software Engineer FTC

Lead Software Engineer will play a critical, hands‑on role in shaping the future of our digital, data, and technology offering, focusing primarily on the new website platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the internal technical owner of the new website platform, providing strong technical leadership, governance, and assurance across its design, build, and operation.
• Provide technical oversight and direction to the appointed Digital/website development partner, ensuring best practice engineering approaches, tooling, and standards are applied throughout delivery.
• Own and make key technical design decisions, ensuring the website platform uses modern web and cloud‑native technologies (e.g., React, headless architecture), modern technical approaches for code management, build and deployment pipelines (CI/CD), aligns with Alzheimer’s Research UK’s broader enterprise architecture, security standards, and technology roadmap, and integrates effectively with existing and future Alzheimer’s Research UK’s systems (e.g., CRM, fundraising, analytics, marketing platforms).
• Actively contribute as a hands‑on software engineering individual contributor during the build and test phases, including reviewing and contributing to code where appropriate, supporting technical problem‑solving and performance optimisation, and participating in testing, release, and deployment activities.
• Work closely day‑to‑day with the Digital Engagement team, ensuring technical delivery supports user experience, content, fundraising, and optimisation objectives.
• Establish and embed good engineering practices for the platform, including documentation, environment management, deployment, monitoring, and support handover.
• Take technical ownership of the platform post‑launch, supporting continuous improvement, optimisation, and future enhancements.

Knowledge, skills and experience needed

• Strong professional experience as a senior software engineer /lead software engineer working on modern website or digital platforms.
• Ideally a full stack engineer with strong front‑end skills (React and Python/Django).
• Proven experience with modern front‑end and web architectures, including headless CMS and API‑driven architectures, CI/CD pipelines and automated testing practices.
• Experience acting as a technical owner or lead for an app or website.
• Experience working with modern code management tools such as GitHub, Bitbucket, and of version control/code branching approaches.
• Experience using AI tools to improve engineering efficiency (e.g. Cursor, Claude code, GitHub Copilot).
• Knowledge of code build and deployment processes.
• Solid understanding of cloud‑hosted, scalable, and secure web platforms, including performance, resilience, and security considerations.
• Experience integrating websites with wider digital ecosystems (CRM, analytics, marketing automation, donation/payment platforms).
• Ability to operate effectively as both a hands‑on contributor and a senior technical advisor, balancing strategic oversight with practical delivery.
• Experience working in an agile environment using development workflow tools such as JIRA.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to non‑technical stakeholders.

Ways of Working

As part of our Agile ways of working, you will be required to work approximately 2 days a week from the office, which is subject to the requirements of the role and the business needs. Flexibility on where you work can be split between working from home and our office.

Roles that are classed as part of the Agile ways of working are not able to claim any costs for Mileage/Travel on Public Transport, Accommodation and/or Meals. This includes when attending the office for various meetings/events.

Office Location

Our office is at 3 Riverside, Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge, CB21 6AD.

EEO Statement

We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone can be themselves and reach their full potential. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, particularly from those in the global majority, those with disabilities, men and those from the LGBTQIA+ community. Any offer of employment is however subject to you having the right to work in the UK.

As part of our commitment to being an inclusive employer and ensuring fairness and consistency in our selection process, we will handle your CV and application with the utmost confidentiality. Should you require any adjustments at either the application or interview stage, please contact us via our website.