Lead Platform & Systems Engineer

Benefits:

Pension (employer contribution 7.5%), cycle to work scheme

Type:

Full-time

About FourPlus

FourPlus develops immersive, data and AI-enabled software for medicines manufacturing and other highly regulated technical environments.

We are now building the Human Process Intelligence Layer (HPIL) , a new platform that connects wearable AI devices, immersive/XR applications, secure cloud infrastructure, structured manufacturing data and AI models to support operators in real time and generate new insights into how manufacturing processes are performed.

Our existing development team has strong C++ and Unreal Engine expertise. We are now expanding our platform, cloud, data and AI capability as part of a major Innovate UK-funded programme.

The role

We are looking for aLead Platform & Systems Engineerto take technical ownership of the architecture surrounding our XR and wearable applications.

This is a hands-on engineering role for someone who enjoys working across systems rather than within one narrow technology silo.

You will help design and build the platform connecting:

• Unreal Engine/XR applications;
• Web applications;
• APIs and backend services;
• Databases and cloud infrastructure;
• Data and AI services;
• Customer manufacturing and quality systems.

You will be responsible for ensuring these components work together as a coherent, secure and scalable product.

A particularly important part of the role will be enabling the generation and movement of high-quality data from XR applications and wearable devices. You will work closely with our Data & AI Engineer and Unreal developers to design the technical mechanisms required to capture, synchronise, store and retrieve application state, user interactions, device signals, video, audio and other operational data.

What you will do

You will:

• Lead technical architecture for the HPIL platform;
• Design and build backend services and APIs;
• Develop the customer-facing web platform;
• Implement secure login, user management and role-based access controls;
• Define interfaces between C++/Unreal applications and cloud services;
• Support real-time communication between wearable devices and backend systems;
• Help design customer account and multi-tenant architecture;
• Integrate with external systems such as MES, QMS, LIMS and electronic batch records;
• Work with Unreal developers and the Data & AI Engineer to create reliable mechanisms for application instrumentation and data capture;
• Help design systems for XR session capture, replay, reconstruction and retrieval;
• Support synchronisation of data across XR state, wearable devices, audio/video and backend services;
• Develop APIs and services that expose structured operational data to analytics and AI systems;
• Work closely with cloud/security and data/AI engineers;
• Contribute to technical roadmap and technology-selection decisions;
• Review architecture and code and support good engineering practice.

What we are looking for

You should have strong experience in several of the following:

• Modern frontend frameworks such as Svelte, React or Vue;
• REST APIs;
• Cloud-hosted applications;
• Authentication and authorisation;
• Git and automated testing.

Experience with any of the following would be especially useful:

• SaaS or multi-tenant platforms;
• OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect;
• MFA and SSO;
• Real-time systems or WebSockets;
• API integrations;
• Event-driven architecture;
• C++ application integration;
• Application telemetry or instrumentation;
• Replay, simulation or digital-twin systems;
• IoT or wearable technology;
• Data streaming
• AI-enabled applications;
• Regulated software.

You donot need to be an Unreal Engine specialist.

The type of person we are looking for

We are a small technology company, so we are looking for someone who is comfortable taking ownership and solving problems beyond a narrowly defined job description.

You should enjoy:

• working directly with developers from different technical disciplines;
• turning incomplete requirements into practical technical solutions;
• making sensible trade-offs between speed and robustness;
• learning unfamiliar technologies where required;
• thinking about how systems should generate, move and expose data—not simply how individual applications are built;
• building products rather than isolated pieces of software;
• technical project management with Agile/sprint methodology

Experience in pharmaceuticals or life sciences is useful but not essential.

You will have the opportunity to help shape the architecture of a genuinely new product category rather than maintaining an established enterprise platform. You will work directly with XR, AI, manufacturing and life-science specialists and have meaningful influence over how the product is designed and built.

Working at FourPlus

We are a small, multidisciplinary technology company. Roles are broad and there will be times when you need to work outside your usual technical specialism, investigate unfamiliar problems or help another part of the team.

We value positivity, curiosity, practical problem-solving, ownership and willingness to learn more than rigid job boundaries.

You do not need to meet every requirement.

We deliberately recruit for technical breadth, aptitude and ability to learn. If you have strong foundations in the core areas of the role and can demonstrate that you have successfully moved into unfamiliar technologies before, we would still like to hear from you.