Engineering Lead

We are looking for a technically experienced Engineering Lead to join our Engineering function and take ownership of engineering quality, standards and delivery assurance across a complex, multi-partner landscape. This is a hands-on leadership role. The Engineering Lead will be equally comfortable presenting technical risk to senior stakeholders and conducting code reviews with delivery teams. The split is intentional - we need someone who leads by doing, not just directing.

The role sits at the centre of how we build and govern integration at Currys, covering the full stack from .Net middleware and Azure infrastructure through to frontend and downstream system connectivity. You will set the engineering bar, hold partners to it, and begin building the internal engineering capability that will carry this function forward.

This role will suit a senior engineer who has built and governed high-volume, resilient systems - ideally in retail or ecommerce - and who knows from experience what production-grade engineering looks like. Someone who designs for failure, builds in observability from day one, and treats CI/CD as a discipline.

Role overview:

• Own and enforce engineering standards across all delivery partners and internal teams - covering code quality, patterns, security, and maintainability.
• Conduct and lead code reviews; provide clear, actionable feedback.
• Define and document engineering principles for Integration Services, ensuring they are understood and applied consistently.
• Provide technical assurance across integration design and implementation - ensuring services are robust and well-documented.
• Review and challenge integration approaches across .Net middleware, Azure services, and connected downstream systems.
• Ensure that resilience, self-healing and scalability are designed in from the start.
• Own the engineering approach to CI/CD.
• Define and implement pipeline standards, branching strategy, and environment management across the function.
• Drive maturity across release governance - ensure release processes are repeatable, low-risk and well-understood by all partners.
• Conduct technical audits across delivery partners; produce actionable findings and hold partners to agreed improvement plans.
• Work closely with external delivery partners to set clear engineering expectations, assure their output, and manage performance against agreed standards.
• In parallel, recruit, nurture and develop a small Engineering team - building an in-house capability that reduces partner dependency over time.
• Challenge where quality or approach falls short; escalate clearly and quickly when issues put delivery at risk.
• Represent engineering at programme and senior stakeholder level - translating technical complexity into clear, actionable language.
• Collaborate and socialise engineering direction across teams.
• Bridge the gap between business intent and engineering execution; challenge requirements where technical feasibility or risk warrants it.
• Apply pragmatic, MVP thinking to service-based delivery - defining what good enough looks like.

Required Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years of Senior Engineering experience, including time operating at Engineering Lead level in a multi-team or multi-partner environment.
• Hands-on expertise in .Net and Azure. Full stack capability is strongly preferred.
• Proven experience designing, building and governing integration services and APIs - this is the core of the role.
• Demonstrable experience building resilient, scalable, production-grade applications.
• Monitoring and alerting built in from the start, not added later - candidates must be able to articulate their approach to observability as part of design, not an afterthought.
• Strong SDLC knowledge: CI/CD implementation and improvement, pipeline ownership, branching strategy, environment management and release governance using Azure DevOps.
• Demonstrable ability to work with and hold external delivery partners to account.
• Experience recruiting and developing engineering talent; able to build a team as well as lead one.
• Experience in retail, ecommerce or a high-volume consumer-facing environment.
• Familiarity with regulated or financially sensitive integration environments.
• Prior experience operating in large transformation programmes alongside multiple third-party delivery partners.