Engineering Lead in Stockport

About Naturecan

Naturecan Group is a fast‑growing, multi‑entity health and wellness business operating across e‑commerce, regulated pharmacy, and clinical healthcare. We run operations across the UK, Germany, and beyond — brands include Naturecan (D2C, ~50 Shopify stores), Mycannabis and Nowomed (German medical cannabis pharmacy), WMG Pharma (wholesale pharmaceutical distribution), and Dose (our CQC‑registered UK medical cannabis clinic). Our technology team sits at the heart of that growth. We build and maintain the platforms that underpin every entity in the group — and we’re scaling fast.

About the Dose Platform

Dose is our UK medical cannabis clinic — CQC‑registered and GPhC‑registered pharmacy — built to deliver a full end‑to‑end digital treatment pathway: from initial consultation and prescribing through to dispensing, fulfilment, and ongoing patient care. We have built this platform from the ground up — a greenfield build, designed to be scalable, secure, and extensible across EU and global markets. We are now entering the next phase: stabilising and launching the platform, delivering the V2 feature roadmap, and beginning the migration of our German pharmacy operations onto the same infrastructure. This role sits at the centre of that work.

The Role

We are looking for an Engineering Lead to own delivery across the Dose engineering team. This is a hybrid role that combines technical credibility with delivery leadership — you are equally capable of understanding what is being built and making sure it is being built to the right standard, in the right order, with the right people assigned. You will report to the Engineering Manager and work closely with the IT Director, clinical operations, and the wider delivery team. You will be the person who owns the Dose Jira board, drives sprint governance, translates operational and clinical requirements into well‑scoped tickets, and keeps the team and stakeholders aligned. This is not a pure coding role, and it is not a pure management role. The balance tilts toward delivery ownership and planning — and the right candidate will be energised by that, not reluctant about it.

What You'll Do

• Delivery & Sprint Governance
  • Own the Dose Jira board — ticket creation, scoping, refinement, prioritisation, and sprint integrity
  • Write and maintain well‑scoped, developer‑ready tickets from clinical and operational requirements — not just assigning work but defining it clearly enough that it can be picked up without back‑and‑forth
  • Run sprint ceremonies — planning, stand‑up rhythm, retrospectives — with purpose and pace
  • Track delivery against sprint commitments; flag risks early and escalate where needed
  • Keep the backlog clean, current, and prioritised alongside the Engineering Manager
• Stakeholder Communication
  • Act as the primary technical point of contact between clinical operations and the engineering team — translating requirements in both directions
  • Keep clinical and operational stakeholders informed on delivery progress, timelines, and blockers without requiring Engineering Manager involvement in routine updates
  • Attend and lead cross‑functional meetings on behalf of the engineering team — representing what is being built and what it will take
• Technical Oversight
  • Maintain close oversight of the Dose codebase — understanding what is being built and where the technical risks sit, without necessarily writing the most code
  • Review pull requests and provide technical direction, particularly in compliance‑sensitive areas of the platform
  • Work with the Engineering Manager and Principal Developer on architecture decisions, CQC and GDPR compliance requirements, and cross‑platform technical decisions
  • Maintain and improve CI/CD pipelines, testing coverage, and engineering standards across the Dose team
  • Support the onboarding and development of contractors and permanent team members — setting the standard for how good work looks
• Platform Migration & Scaling
  • Lead the delivery workstream for the migration of legacy pharmacy systems into the Dose platform — scoping, sequencing, and tracking progress from first spike through to completion
  • Own the roadmap for scaling Dose beyond MVP — feature development, V2 delivery, and the technical groundwork for EU market expansion
  • Work closely with the Principal Developer and Engineering Manager to ensure migration decisions are architecturally sound and compliant with regulatory requirements
• AI & Developer Productivity
  • Co‑lead the AI automation programme with the Engineering Manager — including meeting‑to‑Jira pipelines, AI‑assisted ticket creation, and shared developer tooling
  • Champion the use of Claude Enterprise and AI‑assisted development workflows across the team to reduce low‑value overhead and increase output quality

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for someone with most of the following — you don’t need to tick every box:

• Delivery & Leadership
  • Proven track record of owning sprint delivery in a fast‑moving engineering team — not just as a contributor, but as the person accountable for the board
  • Experience writing high‑quality, developer‑ready tickets from business, clinical, or operational requirements — you understand that good tickets are the job, not an afterthought
  • Strong stakeholder management skills — comfortable working with non‑technical stakeholders and translating between what they need and what the team can build
  • A clear, calm communicator who can run a sprint ceremony, give a status update, and manage competing priorities without creating noise
  • Comfortable operating at the edge of what is defined — making pragmatic decisions under uncertainty rather than waiting for everything to be clear before moving
• Technical Credibility
  • 5+ years of professional software development experience, with solid backend skills — TypeScript, Node.js / Bun.js, and familiarity with React or comparable front‑end
  • Solid understanding of relational databases (PostgreSQL or similar) and API design — able to review code and architecture meaningfully
  • Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS) and CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions or similar)
  • Strong understanding of security best practices in a regulated environment — authentication, authorisation, sensitive data handling
  • Experience working in healthcare, fintech, or other regulated environments is a strong plus — CQC familiarity is a bonus, not a requirement
  • Comfortable using AI‑assisted development tools and curious about how they can improve team output

The Right Person

• Energised by delivery ownership — sprint governance, ticket quality, and keeping a team aligned is what they want to be doing, not a tax on their time
• High standards for what goes onto the board — won’t let vague requirements become someone else’s problem
• Collaborative and direct — gives honest feedback and receives it well
• Interested in growing into broader engineering leadership over time — this role has a natural path as the team and business scale

About the Team

The engineering team is small, direct, and high‑trust. The Engineering Manager leads delivery across Dose and MedCan. The Dose team is a mix of permanent engineers and senior contractors, all focused on the clinical platform. MedCan has a core senior developer and a growing clinic operation. Naturecan Core has two developers supporting ~50 Shopify stores. You will report to the Engineering Manager, work closely with the IT Director and Principal Developer, and have direct visibility into every significant delivery decision on the Dose platform. This role was created to take genuine ownership — of the board, the backlog, and the delivery rhythm — not to assist someone else who owns it.

Interview Process

Initial call (30 mins) — role overview and mutual fit

Delivery and technical review (1 hour) — sprint governance, requirements translation, prior work walkthrough

Team meet — working practices, Q&A with the Engineering Manager and IT Director

Offer

We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and welcome applications from all backgrounds.

What We Offer

• Salary – depending on experience
• Location – Stockport office every Thursday; remote the rest of the week
• Pension – company pension scheme
• Health – private health insurance
• Staff discount – Naturecan group product discount
• AI Tooling – Claude Enterprise access across the team — AI‑assisted development workflows embedded in how we work
• Culture – small team, big ambition — genuine ownership and direct access to decision makers
• Process – two‑week sprints, retrospectives, pair working practices
• Equity – meaningful equity conversation for the right candidate