Lead Developer in London

Lead Developer in London

London Full-Time 60000 - 80000 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead the development of a cutting-edge royalty portal using Java and AWS.
  • Company: Join Universal Music, the world's leading music company with a vibrant culture.
  • Benefits: Enjoy competitive pay, flexible work options, and opportunities for personal growth.
  • Other info: Collaborative environment with a focus on diversity and inclusion.
  • Why this job: Make an impact in the music industry while working with innovative technologies.
  • Qualifications: Strong Java skills and experience with AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes required.

The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.

Music is Universal. It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation. We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles.

Department Description: With a global footprint, the Universal Music Group Royalty and Copyright Product Team designs, develops, delivers and maintains a number of technical solutions to calculate royalty accountings in a timely and accurate manner to our valued artists. We’re also providing them with an extent and detailed visibility of these earnings from various sources of digital incomes. The team continuously collaborates with our international business teams to deliver innovative solutions as well as supporting best practices and new processes for a better royalty flow.

The Role: The Lead Developer will be responsible for designing, developing and maintaining one of UMG external facing royalty portal using Java. The Lead Developer will also work with containerised workloads on Kubernetes, and have exposure to modern DevOps and CI/CD practices. The Lead Developer will be part of an agile product team, collaborating closely with product owners, business analysts, engineers, architects, QAs and DevOps to deliver secure, performant and reliable solutions. Please note, this role will be working with an offshore team and will require a late shift pattern initially, this will then move to an ad-hoc basis.

Key Responsibilities

  • Be Technical: Design, build and maintain backend services and APIs using Java. Develop and support AWS serverless solutions (e.g. Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, S3). Work with Docker and Kubernetes to build, deploy and run containerised services. Contribute to the design and implementation of scalable, secure and resilient cloud architectures. Work with DevOps engineers to enhance CI/CD pipelines, automated testing and deployment processes. Model and optimise data (AWS Redshift and Aurora PostgreSQL).
  • Be a leader: Providing technical leadership and direction for the Royalty development team. Orchestrate development by leading a development team. Establish and enforce development guidelines. Strong leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and engage stakeholders at all levels.
  • Be Collaborative: Participate in code reviews, technical discussions and agile ceremonies. Troubleshoot production issues and improve monitoring, logging and alerting across services. Collaborate with stakeholders to refine requirements and deliver high-quality solutions on time. Build positive relationships with business stakeholders and rest of development teams.

Skills and Experience required

  • Must have strong commercial experience with Java for backend development.
  • Proven experience building solutions on AWS, ideally including serverless services (Lambda, API Gateway, AppSync, etc.).
  • Experience with Docker and Kubernetes for container orchestration.
  • Good understanding of DevOps concepts, with practical experience using Git and working with CI/CD tooling (e.g. GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI or similar).
  • Experience with SQL (AWS Redshift and Aurora PostgreSQL).
  • Comfortable working in an agile environment (Scrum/Kanban).
  • Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail and a collaborative mindset.
  • Experience building and maintaining ETL pipelines using AWS Glue.
  • Experience building supporting services and automation using Python.

Nice to have

  • Experience in media, entertainment or digital content domains.
  • Knowledge of microservices and event-driven architectures.
  • Experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g. CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform).
  • Any experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) and/or MLOps (e.g. model deployment pipelines, monitoring and lifecycle management) is highly desirable.
  • Understanding of compliance requirement around SDLC, ITGC, ITAC.
  • Experience with Flyway or similar database migration tooling.
  • Experience with OpenSearch/Elasticsearch for search and indexing workloads.

Key Behavioural/Personality Traits

The Lead Developer will demonstrate strong leadership across the full project lifecycle, communicating effectively with stakeholders. The Lead Developer will guide and mentor the development team, ensuring high engineering standards and fostering a productive, collaborative environment.

Just So You Know… The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.

Job Category: Technology

Lead Developer in London employer: SwiftCruit

At Universal Music, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that champions creativity and innovation in the music industry. Our inclusive work culture fosters collaboration and diversity, ensuring that every team member feels valued and empowered to grow their career. With opportunities for professional development and a commitment to embracing neurodiversity, we provide a supportive environment where you can thrive as a Lead Developer in our dynamic London office.

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Contact Details:

SwiftCruit Recruitment Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫

We think this is how you could land Lead Developer in London

Join Local Tech Meetups

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Contribute to Open Source Projects

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We think you need these skills to ace Lead Developer in London

Java
AWS
Serverless Solutions
Docker
Kubernetes
DevOps
CI/CD

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 SwiftCruit.

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

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 SwiftCruit 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.