Lead Software Engineer

About us: Make a difference and advance your career by helping deliver some of the UK’s most important #tech4good projects, making the world a smarter, safer, greener, and healthier place. You’ll join a talented team of dynamic and driven professional problem solvers; creative thinkers and solutions builders who thrive on helping clients meet the most exciting digital transformation challenges. At a certified Great Place to Work®, you’ll experience a dynamic and nurturing environment that rewards initiative and flexibility and enjoy a career path tailored to your own aspirations. Founded in 1992, we are a successful, growing International digital transformation consultancy. We deliver multi-Queen’s Award for innovation winning platforms and services that support large-scale digital transformation. Our digital, data and technology solutions are used by globally recognised public and private sector brands operating in a variety of sectors including Civil Defence, Healthcare, Sustainable Environment and Land Asset Management, and Digital Democracy. The Role: As a Lead Full Stack Software Engineer at Informed Solutions, you’ll take overall technical ownership of large, complex digital solutions for the public sector. Your expertise will guide teams, influence technical strategy, and ensure the delivery of high-quality, scalable, and secure services. You’ll lead end-to-end delivery of major components or entire services, overseeing architecture, design, development, and continual improvement. Working collaboratively across Software Engineering, User-Centred Design, Delivery Management, and Data Science, you’ll shape enterprise-scale digital solutions, mentor colleagues, and drive innovation within the Engineering discipline. We are technology-agnostic, allowing you to select the best tools and platforms for each challenge. From .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, AWS, Azure, and more, you’ll deepen your technical expertise while shaping the way our teams deliver transformative solutions. This role offers flexibility to be based from our Altrincham (Manchester) Office, Westminster (London) Office, Leeds (Yorkshire) Office or Edinburgh (Scotland) Office where you’ll be part of a collaborative, high-performing team environment, supported by our hybrid working approach. Key Responsibilities Client Engagements: - Take overall technical responsibility for high-quality engineering across large, complex services, from design through operation and continual improvement. - Own the end-to-end architecture and design, producing and maintaining high-quality documentation and ensuring designs are effectively implemented. - Work with Delivery Managers to plan complex technical activities, provide robust estimates, and proactively mitigate technical risks and issues. - Build trusted client and partner relationships, offering guidance, enabling effective decision-making, and ensuring technically and commercially sound solutions. - Provide technical assurance and mentoring for teams, supporting less experienced practitioners and maximising overall delivery quality and velocity. Engineering Discipline: - Drive innovation and best practice adoption across the Engineering community, motivating and empowering domain practitioners to create a positive and creative culture. - Support the growth of our Engineering capability via recruitment, masterclasses, training, and curriculum development. - Provide Practitioner Coaching and technical leadership to guide the development of other engineers. Requirements Essential Skills: - Extensive experience leading Full Stack Engineering teams, with advanced skills in .NET or Java or Python, plus modern JavaScript libraries. - Proven track record of taking technical ownership of large-scale services, including architecture, design, and delivery across the full lifecycle. - Strong understanding of architectural and design patterns (serverless, microservices), with ability to lead and assure their application. - Experience leading delivery in Agile environments (Scrum, Kanban, TDD), providing technical guidance and contributing to planning and estimation. - Hands-on expertise the cloud, delivering scalable, secure, and well-architected solutions. - Experience mentoring and coaching engineers, enabling high-quality, efficient delivery. - Strong client engagement skills, able to advise on technical direction and build trusted relationships. - Familiarity with CI/CD tools such as Jenkins and/or Terraform. Desirable Skills: - Consultancy experience, engaging with external stakeholders and clients. - Exposure to public sector projects and delivery in complex organisational environments. Key abilities that are necessary for success: - Able to work effectively in environments where you can adapt to innovative practices involving uncertainty, change, and agile working. - Ability to manage competing priorities and your time so you can deliver high-quality work within deadlines. - Good interpersonal skills, with the ability to respect and accept different perspectives and disagreement, work collaboratively in diverse teams, and maintain positive working relationships. - Good judgement and decision-making in complex environments where uncertainty, ambiguity, and risk must be collaboratively managed by working supportively alongside others. - Good communication skills, including clear, constructive written outputs and measured, respectful verbal delivery.   We work in a fast-paced, ever-evolving innovation and problem-solving workplace environment where no two days are the same. This requires you to have the foundations of personal resilience, professional adaptability, and flexibility in working alongside others with a positive mindset. We appreciate that this workplace culture and the level of variety won’t suit everyone.  However, after significant consultations with colleagues at all levels, we understand that these are the fundamentals of success in undertaking the complex, innovation work which is the DNA of Informed Solutions. These shared foundations are important to team cohesion, performance, and mutual personal support. As colleagues, we thrive in successfully problem solving together to deliver real-world impact; and value the variety of challenges and opportunities to learn, grow, and progress on a personal and professional level.   Benefits Our benefits package compliments our highly competitive salaries and our great working environment. We believe that our people should be properly rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of our business through a comprehensive and flexible range of benefits. These can include: - InformedACADEMY™ – We offer excellent career development opportunities through our award-winning personal and professional development programmes, including support with professional certifications. - Industry leading health and wellbeing plan – We partner with several wellbeing support functions to cater to each individuals need, including 24/7 GP services, mental health support and physical health support. - Hybrid working* - Private Health Care Cover* - Generous life assurance cover* - Gym Membership* - Monthly office lunch - Onsite massage sessions - 25 paid working days holiday per year plus bank holidays* - Sabbatical Leave Scheme* - Enhanced Maternity Leave and Pay* - Enhanced Paternity Leave and Pay* - Company Pension Contribution - Profit Share Scheme - Payment of professional subscriptions - Generous referral scheme with no limits on the number of referrals *Qualifying period applies Culture We are proud to nurture a workplace culture that is diverse, inclusive, rewarding, and egalitarian. We strive to live up to our values of Innovation, Excellence, and Integrity by thinking about things differently, always doing our best, and acting in good faith at all times. We’re a team of passionate problem solvers. We take pride in helping our clients accelerate and de-risk digital business change so that we can collaborate and codesign world class digital services that solve complex business and safety critical problems, particularly where place, location or geography are important. Our workplace culture reflects how we go about our work, the type of work that we choose to do, and our commitment and contribution to the sustainable social, environmental, and economic development aims of the communities that we are part of.