Senior Lead Developer in Bolton

Senior Lead Developer in Bolton

Bolton Full-Time 70000 - 75000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead the migration to a microservices architecture and mentor a skilled development team.
  • Company: Evolve Energy, a rapidly scaling business focused on sustainability and engineering transformation.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, hybrid working, and opportunities for career growth.
  • Other info: Join a passionate team dedicated to innovation in the energy sector.
  • Why this job: Make a lasting impact in a collaborative environment while driving digital transformation.
  • Qualifications: Strong C# experience, microservices design, and mentoring skills required.

The predicted salary is between 70000 - 75000 £ per year.

Location: Manchester/Hybrid working pattern (Occasional business-critical travel to Lytham)

If you’re ready to join forces with a team that’s as passionate about sustainability as it is about providing top-tier service, then read on.

Introduction

Evolve Energy is a rapidly scaling business in an exciting phase of engineering transformation.

We are currently undertaking a strategic digital transformation, with the express need to improve capacity and throughput across all areas of the business and grow to 1bn+ revenue over the next five years.

With a small but skilled development team, we are mid-way through our journey from a mature monolithic system to a modern, services-based architecture on the Microsoft Azure stack .

Role Purpose

We are looking for a Lead Developer to own and drive this migration — someone who can architect with confidence, write excellent C# code, champion engineering best practices, and build a high-performing engineering team through technical leadership, mentoring and modern software engineering practices.

This is a hands-on individual contributor role with real technical leadership: you will mentor senior and mid-level developers, set standards, and shape the engineering culture of the team.

You will report directly to senior leadership and have a meaningful voice in technology decisions.

This is an opportunity to make a lasting architectural impact at a company where engineers are valued and trusted.

As this is a genuine leadership role there will be opportunity to grow into a Head of Engineering role as the organisation scales.

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Architecture & Migration
  • Lead the technical strategy for migrating the existing monolithic . NET application to a microservices architecture on Azure
  • Apply appropriate architectural patterns to enable incremental migration whilst maintaining the stability, performance and integrity of the existing platform
  • Design services using Domain-Driven Design (DDD), CQRS and Event Sourcing, including service boundaries, data ownership and communication patterns across REST and Azure Service Bus
  • Consider . NET Aspire for local development orchestration and service discovery, reducing environment setup friction for the team
  • Make pragmatic architectural decisions that balance modern greenfield patterns with the realities of an early-stage migration
  • Technical Delivery
  • Write high-quality, production-ready C# across ASP. NET Core Minimal APIs, Blazor United (SSR and Web Assembly) and internal g RPC services
  • Build and maintain Azure-native infrastructure: AKS, Azure Functions v4, Service Bus, Azure SQL, Azure Cache for Redis, Key Vault
  • Design and evolve CI/CD pipelines in Azure Dev Ops (or Git Hub Actions), including build, test, container image scanning, and blue-green deployment automation
  • Own infrastructure-as-code using Bicep or Terraform, and embed observability from day one using Open Telemetry alongside Application Insights
  • Champion test-driven development, including meaningful unit testing with x Unit, integration testing with Playwright and consumer-driven contract testing between services, for example using Pact
  • Ensure security is embedded into engineering practices, including SAST scanning, dependency updates, and OWASP-aligned API design via Azure API Management
  • Technical Leadership & Mentoring
  • Lead, mentor and develop a small engineering squad through structured code reviews, pair programming, technical coaching and architectural working sessions
  • Define and document coding standards, design patterns, ADRs (Architecture Decision Records), and engineering workflows
  • Lead technical planning sessions and break down complex migration work into clear deliverables
  • Foster a culture of continuous improvement — blameless post-mortems, knowledge sharing sessions, and regular retrospectives
  • Act as a bridge between business requirements and technical solutions
  • Establish engineering metrics and quality standards, driving continual improvement across code quality, delivery performance and platform reliability
  • Agile Delivery & Scrum Leadership
  • Act as Scrum Master for the engineering squad, facilitating Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives
  • Own the health of the delivery process, continually improving team flow, predictability and throughput using agile metrics where appropriate
  • Work closely with Product Owners and stakeholders to refine requirements, manage priorities and remove delivery impediments
  • Coach the team in agile principles, helping establish a culture of continuous improvement and iterative delivery
  • Balance technical debt, platform investment and feature delivery to maximise long-term business value
  • Ensure engineering work is broken into well-defined, deliverable increments with clear acceptance criteria
  • AI-Enabled Software Engineering
  • Champion the adoption of AI-assisted software engineering practices across the development team
  • Use modern agentic AI development tools (for example Claude Code, Git Hub Copilot, Cursor or equivalent) to accelerate software delivery whilst maintaining engineering quality
  • Develop effective prompting, workflow orchestration and human-in-the-loop review processes to improve developer productivity
  • Establish engineering standards for the safe, secure and responsible use of AI-generated code
  • Identify opportunities to automate testing, documentation, code reviews, refactoring and repetitive engineering tasks using AI agents
  • Evaluate emerging AI engineering tools and recommend pragmatic adoption where they deliver measurable business value
  • Personal skills and experience essential
  • Ability to articulate technical trade-offs and make pragmatic engineering decisions
  • Strong, demonstrable C# experience on . NET 9 or later, with the ability to produce idiomatic, clean, and tested code
  • Proven experience designing microservices or services-based architectures in production
  • Solid understanding of DDD, CQRS, and Event Sourcing
  • Hands-on experience with Azure-native services: AKS, Service Bus, Azure Functions, Azure SQL
  • Experience building or significantly improving CI/CD pipelines, preferably in Azure Dev Ops
  • Familiarity with Blazor (Server or Web Assembly) or demonstrable enthusiasm to move into it
  • Experience mentoring developers and conducting thorough, constructive code reviews
  • Strong grasp of SOLID principles, clean architecture, and test-driven development
  • Experience using AI-assisted software engineering tools (such as Claude Code, Git Hub Copilot or Cursor) to improve engineering productivity whilst maintaining quality
  • Experience working within Scrum or other Agile delivery frameworks
  • Highly Desirable
  • Experience leading or contributing to a monolith-to-microservices migration
  • First hand experience with . NET Aspire for local multi-service orchestration
  • Experience with infrastructure-as-code: Bicep (preferred) or Terraform
  • Knowledge of Open Telemetry, distributed tracing, and structured logging at scale
  • Experience with Azure API Gateways — versioning, rate limiting, developer portals
  • Understanding of event-driven architecture patterns: sagas, outbox pattern, idempotent consumers
  • Azure certifications, such as AZ-305 Solutions Architect, would be advantageous but are not essential
  • The Ideal Candidate
  • You will be genuinely excited by architectural challenges, you enjoy thinking through distributed systems
  • You enjoy taking ownership: you define the right approach and see it through without waiting for direction
  • You will have excellent communication skills and communicate clearly and empathetically with your team, the business, and in documentation
  • You will balance perfectionism with pragmatism; you know when to do things properly and when to ship
  • You enjoy watching and encouraging your team to succeed, you measure success by what the whole team achieves
  • You will write ADRs naturally, not as a box-ticking exercise but because you find them useful

If you’re ready to be part of a passionate, collaborative team that’s driving change in the energy sector, we’d love to hear from you.

Senior Lead Developer in Bolton employer: Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited)

Evolve Energy is an exceptional employer that champions innovation and sustainability in the renewable energy sector. With a hybrid working model based in Lytham St Annes, we foster a collaborative work culture that prioritises employee growth through continuous learning and development opportunities. Join us to be part of a passionate team dedicated to making a meaningful impact in the energy landscape while enjoying the benefits of a supportive and dynamic workplace.

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Contact Details:

Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited) Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Senior Lead Developer in Bolton

Join Local Tech Meetups

Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited) or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!

Contribute to Open Source Projects

Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited).

Tap into Online Developer Communities

Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited).

Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles

Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited) that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!

We think you need these skills to ace Senior Lead Developer in Bolton

C#
.NET 9 or later
Microservices Architecture
Domain-Driven Design (DDD)
CQRS
Event Sourcing
Azure Services (AKS, Service Bus, Azure Functions, Azure SQL)

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.

Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited).

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited) and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!

Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!

How to prepare for a job interview at Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited)

Brush Up on Your Coding Skills

For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.

Know Your Tools and Frameworks

Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Evolve Energy (Evolve Energy Supply Limited) uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.

Showcase Your Projects

Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.

Prepare for Behavioural Questions

While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.