Lead Software Engineer in London

Lead Software Engineer in London

London Full-Time On-site
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About Made Tech
Our aim at Made Tech is to use human-centred technology to improve our society. We believe putting people at the heart of designing, building and delivering public services leads to better outcomes for everyone.

Are you a Software Engineer that wants to actually see the real-world impact from what you help to create? Our mission is simple! We believe we can use tech to make public services better. We also believe this can happen best when our own team represents the society that actually used the services we work on. At Made Tech, we’re collectively continuing to grow a culture that is happy, healthy, safe and inspiring for people of all backgrounds and experiences, so we encourage all people from underrepresented groups to apply for roles with us. Have we caught your interest? Please read on…
We are looking for Lead Engineers with a particular penchant and love for cloud, automation, slick tooling, and empowering software delivery by coaching teams in true DevOps fashion. While we are looking for those with significant experience working with AWS this role remains a full stack and polyglot role as with all of our Software Engineering roles
Our Lead Software Engineers are Tech Leads, Architects, Thought Leaders, Full Stack Engineers, and Consultants. They are our most senior technologist within a customer account representing Made Tech and act as a hands-on CTO across one or more software delivery teams driving organisational change and outcomes for users. They combine technical excellence, drive to deliver, and coaching, to achieve outcomes for our customers and their users, and to establish strong engineering cultures within our customers' organisations. They find themselves working on a variety of different problems from monoliths to microservices, upskilling colleagues and customers, always finding themselves learning from others, while constantly striving to be nice humans :)


About the role


We primarily write and deliver custom software for the public sector. We work across central and local government, as well as in health, and our past lies in the technology startup world. Technical excellence for us isn’t about delivering to feature lists. We place a strong emphasis on outcome-based delivery; ensuring our customers goals are understood and achieved with the technology we deploy.

High performing software delivery teams need to be empowered to iteratively and rapidly deliver changes all the way through to production. To do this we combine our extensive cloud automation knowledge with DevOps culture.

We ensure we document our architecture and infrastructure as code, using technologies such as Terraform and OpenAPI. Containerisation is a big part of empowering our teams to develop, deploy and scale their applications, but so too is using AWS Lambda and avoiding the complexity of stateful services altogether. Right tool for the job.

For us, DevOps is about culture rather than roles and titles. Even though this role is for someone with strong DevOps experience, the biggest impact you will have is coaching and helping teams use the platforms you build. You won’t be building infrastructure in isolation or charged with deploying other people’s work into production. You’ll empower teams with the mantra: you build it, you run it!

Our teams have used Java, Ruby, Python, ES6 with React, C# with .NET Core. We don’t limit ourselves as a company and we expect all our Engineers to be keen on learning new technologies. Automation is important to our teams, so we make sure there is a CD pipeline set up to build, test, and release many times per day.

We grow a team of language agnostic engineers, which you might already consider yourself to be, who are versed in a mix of paradigms such as object oriented, functional, declarative, event-based and aspect-oriented. To create this environment our Senior Engineers need to embrace sharing their knowledge and skills with others, and they need to keep an open mind -we’d love to hear some examples of mentoring, coaching and growing team members. Maybe you will have written some blog posts about your discipline, or perhaps even delivered a talk or two.


Skills, Knowledge & Expertise


Essential Skills
We want our teams and individuals to grow. If you don’t have the following skills, you will have access to a learning budget, experienced team members and a wider learning and mentoring culture that can help you develop the following:

  • Written code with tests
  • Delivery in an agile environment
  • Worked across a variety of programming languages
  • Worked with databases
  • Worked with APIs
  • Worked with at least one Cloud platform
  • Debugging experience in a range of systems
  • Evidence of self-development - we value keen learners
  • Drive to deliver outcomes for users
  • Desire to mentor & people manage
Nice to Haves

  • Consultancy experience
  • Working directly with customers and users
  • Working within multidisciplinary teams with product, design, and technology working within the same cycles
  • Showcasing and presentation skills
  • Agile practices such as Scrum, XP, and/or Kanban
  • Pair programming - we pair around 50% of the time
  • Writing code with test-driven development
  • Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines
  • Component-based design techniques such as using pattern libraries, styled-components, CSS-in-JS, BEM, and/or SUIT CSS
  • Debugging infrastructure
  • The REACT ecosystem including a test-driven approach
  • Infrastructure as code technology like Terraform and Cloud Formation
  • Familiarity with architectural and design patterns
  • Use of architectural design records
You can find the full job description on our handbook here

Please note, an increasing number of our customers are specifying a minimum of SC (security check) clearance in order to work on their projects. As a result, we're looking for all successful candidates for this role to have eligibility.
Eligibility for SC requires 5 years' continuous UK residency and 5 year's employment history (or back to full-time education). Please note that if at any point during the interview process it is apparent that you may not be eligible for SC, we won't be able to progress your application and we will contact you to let you know why.


Job Benefits


At this point, we hope you're feeling excited about Made Tech and the job opportunity. Even if you don't feel that you meet every single requirement, we still encourage you to apply. Get in touch with our talent team if you’d like an informal chat about the role and your suitability before applying. We are hiring for this role directly, so will not respond to any CVs sent via external recruitment agencies.

Support in applying
If you need this job description in another format, or other support in applying, please email talent@madetech.com.

We believe we can use tech to make public services better. We also believe this can happen best when our own team represents the society that actually uses the services we work on. We’re collectively continuing to grow a culture that is happy, healthy, safe and inspiring for people of all backgrounds and experiences, so we encourage people from underrepresented groups to apply for roles with us.

When you apply, we’ll put you in touch with a member of our talent team who can help with any needs or adjustments we may need to make to help with your application. We’ve put together this blog as a resource to share more about reasonable adjustments and some examples of what this could include. We also welcome any feedback on how we can improve the experience for future candidates.

Life at Made Tech
We’re committed to building a happy, inclusive and diverse workforce. You can get a sense of what it’s like working here from our blog, where we talk about mental health, communities of practice and neurodiversity (as well as our client work and best practice).
Like many organisations, we use Slack to foster a sense of community and connection. As well as special interest groups such as music, food and pets, we also have 10+ Slack channels dedicated to specific communities, allies, and identities as well as dedicated learning spaces called communities of practice (COPs). If you’d like to speak to someone from one of these groups about their experience as an employee, please do let a member of the Made Tech talent team know.
Benefits
We are always listening to our growing teams and evolving the benefits available to our people. As we scale, as do our benefits and we are scaling quickly. We've recently introduced a flexible benefit platform which includes a Smart Tech scheme, Cycle to work scheme, and an individual benefits allowance which you can invest in a Health care cash plan or Pension plan. We’re also big on connection and have an optional social and wellbeing calendar of events for all employees to join should they choose to.

Here are some of our most popular benefits listed below:
30 days Holiday - we offer 30 days of paid annual leave plus bank holidays
Flexible Working Hours - we are flexible with what hours you work
Flexible Parental Leave - we offer flexible parental leave options
Remote Working - we offer part time remote working for all our staff
Paid counselling - we offer paid counselling as well as financial and legal advice

Lead Software Engineer in London employer: Made Tech

Made Tech is an exceptional employer that champions a flexible work culture, allowing you to balance your professional and personal life while making a meaningful impact in the public sector. With a strong focus on employee growth, we offer continuous development opportunities and a collaborative environment where your leadership skills can thrive. Join us to be part of a team dedicated to delivering excellence and enhancing service quality across the UK.

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Contact Details:

Made Tech Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Lead Software Engineer in London

✨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 Made Tech 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 Made Tech.

✨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 Made Tech.

✨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 Made Tech 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!

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 Made Tech.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Made Tech 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 Made Tech

✨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 Made Tech 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.