Lead Software Engineer
Our vision is a future where everybody in society has access to financial advice and guidance. Our Software as a Service (SaaS) platform provides engaging digital experiences for consumers and powerful tools for financial advisers.
In our cross-functional product teams, Software Engineers work directly with Product Owners and UX Designers to build our customer journeys and services. We are a true Fintech with a strong engineering culture and focus on innovation and agile methodology. We have an excellent Developer Experience and use a modern AWS-based serverless web stack including SST, React and Typescript.
As a Software Engineer, you are empowered to own the full lifecycle of the software you create: designing the system, writing code, building automated tests and running the system in production.
We welcome individuals from all walks of life and strive to build a culture where all voices are heard, differences are embraced, and everyone has equal access to opportunities. We encourage applications from individuals of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
If you require any reasonable adjustments to be made during the application or interview process, please let us know, and we will be happy to help.
About the Role
We are looking for an experienced Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and delivery management in one of our key product teams. The team owns tools and journeys that help customers understand their financial situation, evaluate the options available to them, take actions, and plan for their future.
As Lead Software Engineer you will have a very close working relationship with your team’s Product Manager and UX Designer. Through this collaboration you will understand the product requirements and roadmap in depth, and provide essential technical input and ideas to the design and discovery process.
We believe that engineering teams should own software delivery without a separate delivery management role. Lead Software Engineers are central to this, and you will own the delivery process including chairing huddles, managing tickets and overseeing the smooth running of delivery activities.
We have a team-first culture. You will be line manager of Software Engineers and Senior Software Engineers in your team. This will include having regular 1-1s, coaching, and supporting career development. You will develop the required skills and knowledge in the team, on an individual basis and as a collective.
As Lead Software Engineer you will also be a hands-on technical leader. You will engage in design discussions within the team, write code and pair with others, review PRs, solve problems, and ensure a high standard of quality throughout. As the technical lead in a “we build it, we run it” team, you will keep a close eye on the running of the services in production, helping to triage issues that arise and working to improve observability and stability.
Key Responsibilities
- You will own the successful delivery of software for your team.
- You will collaborate closely with the Product Manager, providing trusted technical input to the product shaping process.
- You will act as a delivery manager, overseeing the management of tasks, tracking their status and continually working to minimise delivery risk.
- You will be line manager to the Software Engineers in your team, helping them to grow their skills and advance their careers.
- You will build, support and maintain products that are continuously delivered into our production environments.
- You will write comprehensible, well tested code with an eye towards maintainability and scalability, never compromising on quality.
- You will partner effectively with all team members to deliver against commitments.
- You will guide technical discussions during task analysis, design meetings and code reviews.
- You will actively follow, advocate and improve our coding standards and engineering principles.
- You will help to evolve our platform iteratively, without over-engineering, instead promoting simplicity and working software.
- You will use your experience and skills to assist your team in establishing the best architecture for your products and services.
- You will provide support for junior team members, notably through pair programming and empathetic peer review.
- You will promote industry best practices such as test driven development, single batch flow, feature toggles, continuous delivery, canary releases, test automation and observability,
- You will use data, domain knowledge and your own research to innovate and continuously improve our products and our platform.
- You will use deliberate analysis and planning to tackle complex situations.
- You will keep the team focussed on the four DORA metrics: deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate and mean time to restore.
- You will ensure that we are covering all aspects of product delivery, especially non-functional quality attributes such as security, reliability, scalability, maintainability and accessibility.
- You will ensure that we're following our agreed processes and adapting them as we discover refinements in our continuous improvement cycle.
Your Skills
- You are be able to prove your knowledge of full-stack Node.js development in our remote technical test, using Typescript (preferred) or Javascript.
- You have exposure to serverless architecture, preferably with AWS.
- You have experience in refactoring older systems towards a cleaner strategic architecture.
- You have experience of leading teams, helping to facilitate valuable outcomes through coaching and mentoring.
- Experience with AI models and Large Language Models (LLMs) - preferred, but not essential.
- You have a strong commitment to self-learning, demonstrating how you’ve developed your skills.
- You have the ability to take ownership of a task, analyse it and solve problems you have not faced before.
- You have a desire to work collaboratively in your team, learning from others and sharing what you know.
- You will be technically curious, tackling problems without giving up and seeking feedback early and often.
- You will be willing to point out, own, and fix things that are broken about your services, your team, our company and in your own personal development.
- You are keen on writing simple solutions to complex problems, favouring pragmatism over dogma.
- You are great at communicating context and ensure that you effectively share your understanding of a problem with your team.
- You have recent hands-on experience as a senior or lead software engineer in a team environment.
- You have relatable experience of agile practices and values.
- You are aware of event driven systems and the challenges of asynchronous programming.
- You have experience of test driven development and a preference for pair programming.
- You have experience of automated end-to-end testing.
- You may have knowledge of data structures and data driven design.
- You may regularly write technical articles or contribute to FoSS projects.
- You are a champion of modern development practices and are aware of the latest trends and tooling.
- You are confident in your written and verbal communication skills and are able to use these skills to generate a shared understanding through demonstration of technical rationale
Our Perks
- Flexible working
- We prioritise a sustainable work/life balance
- We have a collaborative learning culture that promotes psychological safety
- 25 days annual leave plus every bank holiday
- Company pension (up to 10% employer contribution)
- Company performance based Bonus scheme
- Paid day off to celebrate your birthday
- Additional holiday purchase (up to 5 days per year)
- Additional holidays for length of service (up to 3 days)
- Private medical insurance
- Dental and health cash plans
- Enhanced parental leave and pay
- Discounts on gym membership and health screening
- Employee assistance programme
- Life assurance of 4x basic salary
- £500 pension advice per year
- 6 paid days per year for self development
- £500 individual training budget per year
- Professional memberships funded
- Salary sacrifice car scheme
- Cycle, Home & Tech scheme
Please note: Candidates must be currently located in the UK and possess full rights to work in the UK. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide sponsorship or consider applications from individuals outside of the UK for this role.
About Wealth Wizards
Founded in 2009, Wealth Wizards are automating financial advice for the digital age.
Our founding purpose is to make financial advice affordable and accessible to everyone, and this mission and ethos still drives the business forward and is at the heart of all we do.
Our Software as a Service (SaaS) platform provides engaging digital experiences for consumers and powerful tools for financial advisers.
Today, we are one of the UK’s leading financial advice technology providers with a growing B2B customer base including wealth management, Tier-1 banks, pension providers and large insurers in the UK.
Since March 2021 we have been owned by Royal London and we now have a key role to play in advancing their digital strategies.
Our founding purpose is to make financial advice affordable and accessible to everyone, and this mission and ethos still drives the business forward and is at the heart of all we do.
Our Software as a Service (SaaS) platform provides engaging digital experiences for consumers and powerful tools for financial advisers.
Today, we are one of the UK’s leading financial advice technology providers with a growing B2B customer base including wealth management, Tier-1 banks, pension providers and large insurers in the UK.
Since March 2021 we have been owned by Royal London and we now have a key role to play in advancing their digital strategies.
Our Hiring Process
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