Lead Engineer in Hythe

Salary: £74,126 - £92,658 FTE DOE+ Benefits + Bonus Location: Newingreen, Kent | Office based

About

We care deeply about inclusive working practices and diverse teams.

If you'd prefer to work full-time, part-time or as a job-share, we'll facilitate this wherever we can - whether to help you meet other commitments or to help you strike a great work-life balance.

About At Holiday Extras, we're creating a workplace where everyone can thrive, build their careers and reach their limitless potential.

As a Sunday Times Best Place to Work 2025, we're proud to offer a world of benefits designed to enhance your lifestyle and well-being.

By joining our team, you'll feel supported and rewarded every day.

We create seamless digital experiences that help travellers make the most of their trips.

From the moment they book to the moment they fly, we remove hassle so they can focus on what really matters - their holiday.

We're embarking on our next evolution in technology.

We call it HX4, a domain-led architecture, and this role puts you at the forefront of driving that change within our teams and domains.

We're also going all in on AI.

We believe it will fundamentally change how we build and operate our products, and we're investing across the business to make it a core part of how we deliver for customers.

The Role

In this role, you'll be encouraged to champion AI-assisted tooling and automation within your team - finding smart, pragmatic ways to raise the quality and pace of what you ship.

The Role This is a hands-on technical leadership role with line management responsibility for a small team of engineers.

You'll combine deep backend expertise with the ability to develop, support, and grow the people around you - setting a high bar for quality while creating the conditions for your team to thrive.

You'll be leading a small, talented team of full-stack engineers, many of whom have a strong frontend background.

As AI reshapes how we build, we're deliberately pivoting towards deeper backend capability - and a meaningful part of this role is guiding that shift.

That means upskilling the team, setting the technical standard, and creating an environment where engineers are genuinely excited to grow.

• Lead and line manage a small team of engineers, owning their development, wellbeing, and performance.
• Define and champion best practices for Node. js and Type Script backend development within the Engineering team.
• Set the technical direction for your team and domain, making sound architectural decisions that balance innovation with pragmatism.
• Be the go-to expert for the business functionality sitting within your domain.
• Collaborate closely with Product, Delivery, Commercial, and Data teams, as well as our trusted partners.
• Drive a culture of technical excellence, coaching engineers and fostering professional growth through mentorship and feedback.
• Champion AI tools and automation to increase team productivity and code quality - identifying where they can genuinely add value.
• Keep pace with the evolving payments landscape, surfacing opportunities and risks for the business.
• Represent your team's work in regular stakeholder demos and updates.
• Balance delivery pace with long-term sustainability, managing technical debt strategically.
• Dedicate 10% of your time to your own learning and development.
• What You Can Bring to Our Team
• Substantial experience in backend development, with expertise in building scalable, reliable, and secure systems using Node. js and Type Script.
• Experience leading and line managing engineers - you understand what it means to be accountable for someone's development and career progression.
• A track record of technical mentorship and helping engineers grow through feedback, pairing, and coaching.
• Experience owning technical direction within a specific business domain, and the judgement to navigate its constraints, whether regulatory, integration-based, or third-party.
• An outcome-driven mindset - you can articulate how your work has improved key metrics for payment platforms.
• A pragmatic approach to technical decisions, balancing innovation with the need to keep things moving.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to adapt your style for technical and non-technical audiences alike.
• Experience managing stakeholders across a range of teams and disciplines.
• A proactive attitude to identifying new opportunities and technologies that can enhance the platform.
• A genuine passion for sharing knowledge - internally through your team, and externally in the wider engineering community.
• Openness to adopting AI tools and practices where they add real value to how your team works.

Everyone's career path is individual and different, so this is just a guide.

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