Lead Software Engineer

A software company in London is looking for a Tech Lead (Python) to join and guide their engineering team. They operate in a fast-paced environment where engineers prioritise quick delivery, practical problem-solving, and real-world impact over perfect code. It's an outcome-driven culture with plenty of autonomy, where developers take ownership across the full lifecycle of their work.

As a Tech Lead, you'll combine hands-on development with technical leadership, helping shape architecture, mentor engineers, and drive engineering standards across the team.

What You'll Work On

• Building integrations with new data and liquidity sources using advanced web-scraping and reverse-engineering techniques.
• Developing and maintaining low-latency, real-time data feeds to support internal strategies.
• Improving system visibility and observability to help identify integration issues and areas for optimisation.
• Leading an agile team with a flexible, evolving roadmap driven by new information and opportunities.
• Taking ownership of software delivery from design through to development, testing, review, deployment, and production support.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Provide direction on architecture, design, and engineering best practices across the team.
• Design & Deliver Features: Build and guide the development of features aligned with business goals, ensuring high-quality, maintainable, and performant code.
• Mentorship & Team Development: Support and mentor engineers, fostering growth and improving team capability.
• Code Quality: Oversee code reviews and testing practices to ensure strong engineering standards.
• Production Ownership: Ensure system reliability in production, leading responses to incidents and driving long-term improvements.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Work closely with engineering teams and stakeholders to design and deliver effective technical solutions.
• Out-of-hours support as part of a rotating schedule.
• Languages: Python
• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Zabbix
• Cloud: AWS

Must-haves

• Strong software development background with deep Python expertise.
• Proven experience in a technical leadership or senior role, guiding teams and influencing architecture.
• Degree in Computer Science or a similar numerical subject.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain complex ideas clearly.
• Strong decision-making skills, particularly around trade-offs in architecture and implementation.
• Experience with web-scraping / reverse-engineering, including navigating bot-protection tooling.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience building event-driven systems.
• Comfortable working in Linux/Unix environments.
• Experience contributing to cloud migration projects (AWS ideal).