App Engineering Lead in Bristol

Unite Students are looking for an experienced App Engineer to join a thriving and innovative team. In this role, you will design and build Unite Students' app platform, integrating with core systems and third-party services to elevate our brand and customer experience. You will champion the adoption of appropriate technologies and frameworks, lead key projects, and foster continuous learning within your team. Flexibility, collaboration, and a commitment to growth are crucial. As a core communicator and collaborator, you will play an integral role in a customer-focused team, dedicated to delivering best-in-class applications in a complex environment driven by continuous improvement.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead a team of passionate mobile app engineers, ensuring delivery of high-quality solutions aligned with organisational strategy.
• Guide technical design and implementation decisions, mitigating risks and maintaining coding and architectural standards.
• Collaborate with the Product & UX team and stakeholders to translate business and user requirements into practical, scalable software solutions.
• A strong understanding of complex native mobile applications to help set the direction for iOS and Android as we scale. Experience in Flutter desired.
• Evaluate, develop, maintain and provide guidance on solutions and solution architectures that align with organisational strategy, ensuring appropriate tools, methods, and non-functional requirements are applied.
• Identify and apply emerging technologies, approaches and user experience trends that strengthen strategic direction and architectural outcomes.
• Ensure development and integration standards, policies, and guidelines are consistently adhered to.
• Lead system integration and software development activities, ensuring effective use of automation, continuous integration, and appropriate delivery methods.
• Select and promote suitable development approaches, tools, and technologies, ensuring adherence to software construction, security, and integration standards.
• Monitor and assess team performance, software quality, and delivery outcomes to ensure continuous improvement and alignment with organisational goals.
• Communicate progress, risks, and technical insights effectively to stakeholders, ensuring transparency and informed decision-making.

What We’re Looking for in You

• Strong professional experience in developing iOS and Android applications and of experience as a technical lead or manager of a mobile engineering team.
• Proficient in mobile app development, preferably native (iOS/Android), React Native, or Flutter. Experience in B2C mobile apps desirable.
• Deep hands-on knowledge of mobile-specific tools, frameworks, best practices, and platform challenges.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, integration patterns, RESTful APIs, GraphQL, JSON, SQL/NoSQL databases, and modern web technologies.
• Experience with source control, continuous integration, automated testing, static code analysis, and software delivery best practices.
• Proven ability to mentor and guide engineers, fostering continuous learning and high-performance team culture.
• Experience influencing technical decisions across teams, promoting best practices and scalable solutions.
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative, and agile environment, adapting to evolving requirements.
• Strong problem-solving, risk mitigation, and technical decision-making skills.
• Awareness of emerging mobile and cloud technologies, with the ability to evaluate and apply them to strengthen architectural outcomes.

What You’ll Get in Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company’s success.
• 25 days’ paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service.
• A generous pension scheme - employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save.
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends.
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents.
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is the UK’s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 23 leading university towns and cities, with 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn’t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone. We’re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we’re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with a passion for creating room for everyone, doing what’s right, keeping US safe, and raising the bar. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.