Lead Developer in Manchester

Enable the system. Raise the engineering bar. Grow the people around you.

SALARY

LOCATION

Manchester/Lytham St Annes

WORKING PATTERN

Hybrid

The opportunity

Evolve Energy is a rapidly scaling business in an exciting phase of engineering transformation. We are modernising a mature monolithic platform into a services-based architecture on Microsoft Azure while increasing the capacity, reliability and speed of delivery needed to support business growth. We are looking for a hands-on Lead Developer who can set technical direction, solve complex engineering problems and help others become stronger engineers. This is not simply the most senior coder in the squad. The role combines excellent software engineering with architecture, operational ownership, delivery leadership, business judgement and structured mentoring.

What success looks like

Engineering decisions are tied to business outcomes. Platforms are easier to change and operate. Delivery is safer and faster. Quality and operational performance are visible. Engineers make stronger decisions and take on greater responsibility.

Take responsibility for and evolve the technical direction of our software platforms, remaining close enough to the code to turn architectural intent into working software. You will establish pragmatic standards, guide cross-system design, improve engineering flow and create the conditions in which teams can deliver reliable, supportable services with confidence.

You will work across engineering, product and business stakeholders, balancing immediate delivery with long-term sustainability. You will also mentor senior and mid-level developers, build consensus around technical decisions and help develop the next generation of technical leaders.

What you will do

Build it well

• Champion test-driven development, behaviour-driven development and automated testing, using testability to improve design quality and confidence in change
• Define coding, testing and quality standards, with meaningful quality metrics such as test coverage, defect escape, change failure rate, mean time to recovery and technical debt trends
• Take responsibility for technical direction, architectural standards and cloud adoption principles. Lead the design of complex cross-system solutions and make trade-offs clear to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Create and maintain useful architectural decision records, reusable patterns and a technical roadmap aligned to product and business priorities
• Design for security, scalability, resilience, supportability and future growth from the outset, not as later additions
• Mentor engineers to write readable, testable and maintainable code, using constructive reviews, pairing and technical coaching
• Continuously improve engineering flow across teams, using delivery and operational data to identify bottlenecks and reduce lead time for change
• Optimise CI/CD pipelines and deployment reliability, increasing deployment frequency while reducing risk
• Promote trunk-based development, short-lived branches and the confident use of feature flags to enable frequent, low-risk releases and controlled rollback
• Identify and remove delivery bottlenecks, surface risks early and break complex work into clear, valuable increments
• Establish observability and operational excellence practices, including metrics, logs and traces that enable proactive monitoring and rapid diagnosis of production issues
• Create a culture of end-to-end ownership: build it, run it and support it. Use incidents and production learning to improve engineering standards and system design

Use AI responsibly to improve engineering

• Identify and apply AI-assisted engineering opportunities that create measurable value, including development, testing, documentation, defect investigation and repetitive engineering tasks
• Define practical standards for the safe, secure and responsible use of AI-generated outputs, with appropriate human review retained
• Embed AI-assisted development and testing into the software delivery lifecycle without lowering engineering quality
• Guide engineers in effective adoption, evaluate emerging tools pragmatically and share what works

Solve the right problems

• Connect technology decisions directly to business value, customer outcomes, operational risk and cost to serve
• Understand business, customer, operational and financial drivers, then shape solution choices and product direction through technical insight
• Prioritise engineering investment according to impact rather than technical preference
• Establish performance baselines, service objectives and capacity plans. Use trends and forecasting to anticipate demand, manage application health and identify scaling risks before customers are affected

Grow capability

• Provide technical leadership across initiatives and teams, creating a coherent engineering vision and influencing decisions beyond the immediate squad
• Make clear, fact-based decisions in ambiguity, challenge assumptions constructively and build consensus across engineers and stakeholders
• Balance short-term delivery with long-term sustainability and represent engineering in strategic discussions
• Identify emerging technologies and improvement opportunities pragmatically, translating worthwhile ideas into practical adoption and measurable outcomes
• Develop future technical leaders through structured coaching and mentoring. Create stretch opportunities, give actionable feedback and promote knowledge sharing across the team

Your technical background

We are more interested in evidence of sound judgement and outcomes than a checklist of technologies. You should nevertheless bring strong, current engineering depth in most of the following areas:

• Strong commercial C# and modern .NET experience, with the ability to produce clean, idiomatic and well-tested production code
• Production experience designing services-based or distributed architectures and defining service boundaries, data ownership and communication patterns
• Hands-on Microsoft Azure experience, ideally including Azure SQL, Service Bus, Functions, Key Vault, container platforms and monitoring services
• CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code experience using Azure DevOps or equivalent, with automated build, test, security and deployment controls
• Strong knowledge of TDD, automated testing, secure engineering practices, observability and operational support
• Experience with event-driven systems and relevant patterns such as idempotency, outbox, sagas, CQRS or event sourcing where appropriate
• Practical use of AI-assisted software engineering tools while maintaining security, quality and human accountability
• Evidence of setting technical direction and leading complex cross-system design, not only delivering assigned components
• Ability to explain architectural trade-offs, risks and assumptions clearly to both engineers and business stakeholders
• A track record of improving engineering standards, delivery flow, platform reliability or operational performance using evidence and metrics
• Experience mentoring engineers, with visible examples of helping others improve judgement, independence and technical capability
• Confidence working with product and business stakeholders to shape priorities and translate needs into sustainable technical outcomes
• A pragmatic leadership style that can protect long-term quality while knowing when a simpler solution is the right one

Highly desirable

• Experience modernising a mature monolith through incremental migration rather than a high-risk rewrite
• Experience with .NET Aspire, Bicep or Terraform, OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing, structured logging and API management
• Knowledge of feature-flag frameworks, progressive delivery and controlled rollback strategies.
• Experience improving performance, capacity planning or service-level objectives for business-critical applications
• Relevant Microsoft Azure certification, although practical evidence matters more than certification alone

The person we are looking for

• You enjoy solving difficult engineering problems, but you start with the business outcome rather than the technology
• You take ownership from design through production support and use operational learning to improve the platform
• You communicate clearly, document decisions and make complexity understandable
• You are evidence-led, comfortable making decisions in ambiguity and willing to revisit them when context changes
• You get satisfaction from enabling others to succeed and measure leadership by the capability and outcomes of the wider team
• You combine ambition with pragmatism: raising standards without creating unnecessary process or perfectionism

You will have a meaningful voice in technology decisions and the opportunity to shape architecture, engineering practice and team capability during a significant period of change. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role with scope to leave a lasting impact on the platforms, the engineering culture and the people around you.