Technical Lead (AI Native) in Manchester

We’re looking for a passionate and experienced Technical Lead with an AI Native mindset who has a proven track record of delivering software solutions, and of building software with AI agents, to join a new ‘start-up’ division within N Brown. As a member of the Castle Fintech team, you’ll be at the heart of a unique and exciting venture to assemble a new financial services platform. With a background in technology disruption or financial services (preferably retail credit), you’ll leverage your industry knowledge to drive the design and development of key solutions for the platform, with AI agents doing the majority of the implementation.

Operating like an independent start-up, within an established organisation, you’ll be completely at home with agile frameworks and will fully embrace iterative, flexible and AI-first delivery approaches.

Job Purpose:

We are looking for an experienced AI-Native Technical Lead with experience of leading the design, development, maintenance, and deployment of complex solutions within Castle using agile development methods, with AI agents doing the majority of the implementation. You will own a continuous improvement backlog, including code design, best practices, and use of automation tools and AI agents. You will set the standards, context and guardrails that let agents, and any engineers you lead or work alongside, deliver high-quality software at pace. Using your experience, you will identify the resources needed for specific solution developments, including the right balance of engineering and agent effort, and how demand will be met within existing capacity.

Key Accountabilities:

• Takes technical responsibility across all stages and iterations of software development, including all agent-generated code.
• Plans and drives software construction activities, orchestrating AI agents to carry out implementation.
• Adopts and adapts appropriate software development methods, AI agents, tools and techniques.
• Contributes to the development of organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for software development, including the safe and effective use of AI agents.
• Deploys automation and AI agents to achieve well-engineered and secure outcomes.
• Specifies and designs large or complex software applications, components and modules, breaking work down into well-specified tasks that agents can execute.
• Contributes to the development of organisational software design and architecture policies and standards.
• Maintains application support processes, and checks that all requests for support are dealt with according to agreed procedures.
• Uses application management software, tools and AI agents to investigate issues, collect performance statistics and create reports.
• Maintains and administers tools and methods for software delivery, deployment and configuration.
• Maintains release processes and procedures.
• Coaches colleagues in developing target skills and capabilities in line with team and personal goals, including AI-native development practices.
• Facilitates effective working relationships between team members.
• Assists in the development of new or improved practices and organisational processes or standards.
• Assists projects, functions or teams in planning the quality management for their area of responsibility.
• Facilitates localised improvements to the quality system or services.
• Rigorously reviews agent-generated code, and continuously improves agentic development workflows, sharing patterns, agent instructions and lessons learned.

Your Experience & Education Requirements:

• AI-native software development – delivering production software using coding agents, e.g. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor.
• Context engineering – specifications, agent instructions and guardrails, and orchestrating agents across a delivery workflow.
• JavaScript/Typescript Development – with the depth to critically review agent-generated code.
• Node serverless microservices – ideally AWS Lambdas or alternatively containers managed through ECS or alike.
• AWS serverless development and deployment frameworks – Serverless framework, AWS SAM, AWS CDK, etc.
• Unit testing framework, e.g., Jest – including using tests to verify and constrain agent output.
• Contract / API Testing Consumption of RESTful services, incl. JSON.
• Continuous integration - Source control: Git, build (Azure DevOps/Gitlab/Other), test, audit (SonarQube), deploy.
• Agile development methodologies.
• Managing the risks of AI-generated code – security, quality and maintainability.

What’s in it for you:

• Hybrid working and flexible start times.
• 24 days holiday (+ 8 bank holidays) with the option to buy an additional 10 days.
• Annual bonus scheme.
• Enhanced maternity and adoption leave.
• Company pension with up to 8% N Brown contribution.
• Mental Health support both internally and externally, including access to our wellbeing champions and counselling services.
• A range of financial wellbeing support.
• Colleague discount across all N Brown brands.
• Onsite café with subsidised rates and local restaurant discounts!
• Life Assurance and Private Medical Insurance.
• Paid volunteer time – all our colleagues can take a full day paid to volunteer for a charity of their choice.

N Brown – who we are and why work for us:

N Brown is a leading UK digital retail platform for clothing, footwear, home and technology, headquartered in Manchester and employing over 1,000 people nationwide. Through our strategic retail brands JD Williams, Jacamo and Simply Be and our unique payments offering, we exist to champion inclusivity and serve the underserved. Our customers are our passion, and we take great pride in delivering products that ensure they can look and feel amazing, without compromising on choice, value and accessibility. We are committed to building a diverse workforce and creating an inclusive environment that values equality for all. Our vision is that by championing inclusion, N Brown will become the UK’s most loved and trusted consumer platform, shaping the future of financial empowerment and personal expression. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging are therefore at the heart of our culture.

Ways of Working:

We offer hybrid working which varies across the business depending on the role you’re in. Our Head Office is located in the Northern Quarter in Manchester City Centre. Our working hours are 36.17 per week Monday to Friday. We believe AI will become a standard part of modern professional practice. We are therefore looking for individuals who are open to learning, testing and responsibly adopting AI tools to improve efficiency, insight and impact in their role.

Our Promise to You:

We’re an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate based on race, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.

What happens when you apply to a role at N Brown?

As soon as we receive your application, we’ll send you an email to let you know. We always aim to come back to you as soon as possible with an update, and we really appreciate you taking the time to apply for a role with us.