Lead Software Engineer

Location: Farnborough, with flexibility to work from home depending on business demands.

Salary: £61,500 - £78,800.

The Role: As a Senior Technical Leader, you will sustain the current environment and deliver new capabilities. You will develop solutions to complex technical issues that impact multiple areas, employ ingenuity and creativity to create systems that achieve functional objectives, and serve as the visible technical representative of the software team.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide senior technical leadership for the software team, collaborating with architects to shape solution approaches, guide implementation, and make balanced engineering decisions that consider delivery, quality, and operational risk.
• Lead technical delivery and engineering practices, ensuring that agreed standards and processes are applied consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
• Represent the software team in customer‑facing discussions, clearly communicating status, risks, trade‑offs, and technical recommendations.
• Develop, debug, test, document, and deploy software enhancements aligned with the Software Development Strategy.
• Lead full‑stack delivery, covering:
• Backend services and APIs implemented in Java.
• Modern single‑page applications implemented with React/TypeScript or equivalent frameworks.
• Drive strong engineering practices, ensuring:
• Adherence to established code review standards.
• Consistent meeting of defined quality gates.
• Promotion of clean, maintainable, well‑documented code.
• Guide system design and development by analysing information needs, system flows, data usage, and work processes, translating them into practical implementation approaches.
• Own technical oversight of the build and deployment pipeline, ensuring CI/CD processes, quality gates, and security scanning requirements are consistently met.
• Determine operational feasibility by evaluating requests, requirements, problem definitions, solution options, and their impact on operational systems.
• Collaborate closely with engineers, architects, and the test team to ensure new and modified software is fully verified prior to promotion.
• Oversee and enable test automation within the project's scope:
• Ensure engineers deliver unit and integration tests as part of development.
• Support and coordinate automation activities, with the test team retaining overall ownership.
• Support and continuously improve Agile delivery practices, including planning, estimation, backlog refinement, and delivery cadence.
• Ensure effective use of development tooling and processes, including CI/CD pipelines and integrated security scanning.
• Mentor and support other engineers, raising technical capability and consistency across the team.
• Effectively communicate with internal stakeholders and external customers, influencing technical decisions with clear, concise input.

What Does Leidos Need From Me?

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, including substantial hands‑on delivery with Java (Java 8, 17, 21) and REST API design and implementation.
• Modern SPA development experience (required) with React and TypeScript, Angular, or Vue.
• Proven technical leadership experience, including leading technical decision‑making, guiding and mentoring engineers, and representing the software team in customer and stakeholder engagements.
• Strong understanding of design patterns and a structured approach to software development.
• Demonstrated experience writing unit and integration tests as a normal part of delivery.
• Familiarity with Agile software development processes and iterative delivery models.
• Familiarity with the Atlassian tool suite (Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo) or equivalent, with a solid understanding of CI/CD concepts, workflows, and practices.
• Experience ensuring compliance with code review standards, quality gates, CI/CD pipelines, and security scanning processes.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Familiarity with integration and architectural patterns such as adapters and orchestration patterns (e.g., saga).
• 3+ years of C/C++ experience.
• Perl, Python, and/or bash scripting experience.
• Experience contributing to or supporting test automation initiatives (UI and/or API).

Clearance Requirements

Successful candidates must be willing and able to obtain UK Security Clearances, which requires a minimum of five years residency in the UK.

Benefits

• Contributory Pension Scheme.
• Private Medical Insurance.
• 33 days Annual Leave (including public and Prime holidays).
• Access to flexible benefits (life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy‑and‑sell holidays, cycle‑to‑work scheme).
• Flexi‑Time Working.

Commitment to Diversity

We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture. We foster belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone. If you have a disability or need reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages, please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.

Commitment to Non‑Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.