Lead Java Software Engineer - Sports

Salary: £75,000 - 75,000 per year

Requirements:

• Strong backend software engineering skills and experience
• Strong Java and Spring Boot development experience
• Technical or team leadership experience, including mentoring and coaching
• Advocacy for software engineering best practices
• Experience with Test Driven Development (TDD)
• Strong knowledge of computer science fundamentals, including object-oriented programming, multithreading, design patterns, and data structures
• Comfort with agentic AI coding
• Collaborative and pragmatic approach, with strong communication and stakeholder management skills
• Nice to have: Kafka, Kubernetes, Docker, or AWS experience

Responsibilities:

• Guide and inspire a small, high-performing development team working on real-time sports betting applications
• Balance hands-on architecture and coding with people management, including coaching and mentoring
• Collaborate closely with the Product Owner and oversee the full delivery lifecycle
• Ensure the product backlog is delivered efficiently and to a high standard
• Promote engineering excellence, best practices, and continuous improvement across the team and wider organisation
• Create a developer-friendly environment that enables individuals to focus, innovate, and perform at their best

Technologies:

• Agentic AI
• AI
• AWS
• Backend
• Docker
• Java
• Kafka
• Kubernetes
• Product Owner
• Spring
• Spring Boot
• TDD
• Cloud
• OOP

More:

We are a global games software house offering the opportunity to work on complex systems with the latest technology in a diverse, supportive environment. The Lead Software Engineer / Team Lead role is based in Central Manchester, with three days a week in the office and flexibility to work from home twice a week. The salary is up to £78,000. Our benefits include the option to work anywhere for one month per year, a personalised training budget, pension, healthcare including dental and optical cover, wellness experiences, gym subsidy, cycle-to-work scheme, volunteer days, and career progression opportunities. The role offers continual learning and an approximately 80/20 split between hands-on technical work and people management.

last updated 40 week of 2026