Technical Lead in Belfast

At Wellington IT we provide the most successful range of Credit Union software in Northern Ireland/Ireland, currently moving billions each year and managing funds for more than 1 in 4 people. Our customers use our software to power every aspect of their financial services business from savings and loans, through to business intelligence, online banking, mobile apps, debit card services and ATMs.

Wellington IT is part of Volaris, an operating group of Constellation Software Inc, a large corporate business based in Canada. Volaris acquires and strengthens companies within the markets they compete, enabling them to grow – that growth comes through organic measures such as new initiatives and product development, day-to-day business, and through complementary acquisitions.

Our people are at the heart of everything we do, Wellington IT offers fantastic career growth opportunities, learning programmes, a space you can thrive and a culture that’s all about continuous improvement. This Year we are proud to say we have achieved our Great Place To Work accreditation across both UK & Ireland!

Your Mission

As a Technical Lead at Wellington IT, your mission is to drive technical excellence and innovation within a delivery team, leading the evolution towards AI-assisted development workflows and modern engineering practices. You will represent the technology aspect of the delivery team triumvirate, guiding engineers as we transition to a pod-based delivery model whilst maintaining hands-on technical contribution. Your experience with AI coding assistants, spec-driven development, and agentic workflows will be instrumental in accelerating delivery and elevating team capabilities. The ideal candidate is an experienced technical leader who combines deep engineering expertise with strong people skills, passionate about leveraging AI-native development tools (such as GitHub Copilot, Amazon Q Developer, or similar) to transform how teams deliver value whilst fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership and AI-Assisted Development
  • Lead technical direction for your delivery team, championing AI-assisted development workflows and spec-driven approaches to accelerate delivery.
  • Guide engineers in effectively leveraging AI coding assistants (such as GitHub Copilot, Amazon Q Developer, Cursor, or similar tools) to enhance productivity and code quality.
  • Establish standards and best practices for AI-native development, including prompt engineering, code generation review, and quality assurance.
  • Keep up with industry best practices in fintech and AI-assisted development, understanding the impact of technology choices on the team.
  • Provide hands-on technical contribution whilst balancing leadership responsibilities.
  • Ensure proposed solutions are feasible within technical constraints and align with overall architectural vision.
• Team Leadership and Line Management
  • Line manage 4-5 engineers, providing regular 1:1s, performance feedback, and career development support.
  • Actively mentor engineers using coaching techniques to help them arrive at solutions, identifying areas for focus and improvement.
  • Read team morale and respond proactively to engineer needs, working to improve team engagement and satisfaction.
  • Ensure your team has the right expertise and skills to deliver on squad goals.
  • Foster a culture of learning and experimentation, providing resources and support for continuous professional development.
• Pod-Based Delivery Model
  • Drive the adoption of pod-based delivery practices.
  • Work closely with Product Owner and Delivery/Scrum Master as part of the triumvirate model.
  • Facilitate effective collaboration within the pod and across dependencies with other delivery teams.
  • Keep the delivery team focused on delivering measurable value aligned to company goals.
  • Effectively manage deliverables, ensuring prioritised work is planned and valuable.
  • Balance new feature delivery with technical debt resolution and customer support priorities, ensuring sustainable pace.
• Stakeholder Engagement and Communication
  • Explain the impact of your pod's work to non-technical stakeholders in clear, engaging terms.
  • Communicate team goals to engineers in ways that connect their work to company success and business value.
  • Work with Product Managers to define feasible metrics and success criteria, helping shape pod goals to deliver business value.
  • Regularly run project/epic kick-off meetings and facilitate collaborative sessions with stakeholders.
  • Proactively inform the triumvirate and stakeholders on progress, blockers, and delivery estimates.
• Technical Excellence and Innovation
  • Revise and restructure existing frameworks and systems, applying advanced technology solutions including AI-assisted tooling to streamline operations.
  • Set strategic direction for AI-native development adoption within your pod, including agentic workflows where appropriate.
  • Identify problems with technology, tools, and processes; encourage engineers to own investigations and proposals for fixes.
  • Actively work to remove distractions and low-impact work from the delivery team.
  • Keep up with industry best practices in both fintech and AI-assisted development, championing their adoption where appropriate.
  • Drive prioritisation frameworks that balance innovation, technical debt, and customer retention objectives.
• Execution and Delivery
  • Estimate delivery of work across the delivery team with accuracy, managing deliverables to ensure prioritised work is valuable.
  • Conduct technical feasibility studies for proposed requirements.
  • Delegate effectively to focus on unblocking engineers and actively removing impediments.
  • Feed proposals to the technical roadmap to keep the platform evolving.
  • Ensure delivery of quality software that meets business and customer needs whilst maintaining focus on technical debt reduction and customer satisfaction.

Skills & Experience

• Essential:
  • Proven experience as a Technical Lead or Senior Software Engineer with leadership responsibilities.
  • Strong hands-on technical skills across multiple systems and technologies relevant to fintech/banking software.
  • Demonstrated experience with AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Amazon Q Developer, Cursor, or similar) in production development.
  • Track record of implementing spec-driven development and AI-assisted workflows to accelerate delivery.
  • Experience successfully mentoring and developing engineers.
  • Experience working in agile/scrum delivery teams with Product Owners and stakeholders.
  • Excellent communication skills with ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
  • Experience estimating and delivering work in iterative cycles.
  • Strong problem-solving abilities and architectural thinking.
• Highly Desirable:
  • Experience with Oracle databases, Java/C#, or modern web technologies.
  • Background in financial services or regulated industries.
  • Familiarity with CI/CD, DevOps practices, and modern development tooling.
  • Experience implementing or transitioning to pod-based delivery models.
  • Track record of driving adoption of AI-assisted development practices or new technologies within teams.
  • Knowledge of agentic AI frameworks (Lang Chain, Lang Graph, Auto Gen) or prompt engineering techniques.
  • Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure) and modern application architectures.

Role Competencies

• Leadership: Able to support and lead technical direction in an agile team; actively mentors engineers and uses coaching techniques; manages team morale and responds to needs.
• Domain Expertise: Keeps up with industry best practices; understands impact of technology choices; can identify problems and drive improvements.
• Interpersonal Skills & Communication: Explains impact to non-technical stakeholders; engages team with goals; facilitates collaborative sessions; works to make engineers understand company objectives.
• Initiative & Innovation: Identifies problems with delivery team and process; sets strategic direction for AI-assisted development adoption; encourages culture of learning and experimentation with modern development tools.
• Execution: Estimates delivery across team; manages deliverables effectively; ensures prioritised work is valuable; actively removes blockers.
• Customer-centric: Facilitates workshops with stakeholders; demonstrates how solutions meet needs; addresses customer preferences with technical alternatives.
• Business Acumen: Understands and communicates goals across teams; helps shape team goals to deliver business value whilst balancing technical debt reduction and customer retention priorities.

Wellington IT Competencies

• Integrity
• Energy & Drive
• Initiative
• Domain Expertise
• Resilience
• Execution
• Customer Centric
• Team Building

Wellington IT Culture & Values

• Commitment – We are committed to the success of our colleagues and customers.
• Teamwork - We do amazing things when we work as a team.
• Respect - We value and seek everyone’s contribution.
• Honesty - We are open and honest in everything we do.
• Positivity - We embrace and inspire positivity in each other.
• Leadership - We lead by example with our words, our actions and results.

What We Offer

• Competitive base salary
• Bonus Scheme
• Annual leave (36 days incl your birthday off)
• Training & Development (Internal & External)
• Market leading workplace pension (15% matched)
• Private Healthcare Scheme - AXA, UK
• Enhanced maternity leave
• Remote/Hybrid Working
• Flexible start / finish times
• Family related benefits
• Excellent Health & Wellbeing Initiatives