Job Profile: Lead Engineer (Digital Product) Reports to: Head of Product I have an immediate need for a Lead Engineer for my Manchester City Centre client. They need someone who can come in and support their Head of Product - to guide architectural decisions, support the team that we’re building (which will be largely third-party resource), and put decent processes in place, whilst also still being able to get their hands dirty. Purpose We’re looking for a skilled and pragmatic hands-on technical leader to join our growing Digital Product team. This role will sit at the intersection of engineering leadership, architectural thinking, and day-to-day coding. You’ll be leading by example — writing clean, maintainable code while also helping to set direction for the squad, mentor other engineers, and ensure technical excellence across everything we build. You’ll play a key role in shaping and delivering the technology behind our pharmacy systems, ecommerce platforms, clinical services, and internal tooling. The work is varied, interesting, and meaningful – from integrating third-party APIs to designing scalable microservices and driving adoption of best practices across our squads. Primary Responsibilities • Technical leadership: Define and evolve architectural patterns, engineering practices, and coding standards. Lead by doing, not just by directing. • Take ownership of engineering delivery – identifying risks, unblocking issues, and working closely with product to align on goals and priorities. • Design and build software: Write clean, tested, and scalable code across the stack, and support others to do the same. This is a hands-on coding role, and you’ll be expected to contribute to complex implementations. • Lead code reviews, enforce coding standards, and foster a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement. • Mentor and support engineers within the squad – developing talent, encouraging autonomy, and helping individuals grow. • Collaborate cross-functionally with stakeholders across Product, Infrastructure, QA, InfoSec, and Operations to align on outcomes. • Translate complex business needs into clear technical requirements and system designs. • Shape the long-term roadmap for the platform alongside product leadership, contributing to strategic decision-making. • Drive operational excellence, supporting on-call where needed and ensuring resilience across services. Knowledge, Skills, and Experience Essential: • Full-stack engineering background with deep experience in hands-on coding and architectural leadership • Strong experience across multiple languages and platforms – ideally including Golang, JavaScript (React, Node.js) and Python (nice to have). • Proven AWS expertise including database design (Aurora, DynamoDB, RDS), networking, monitoring, and cost management • Strong understanding of event-driven and microservices architecture • Comfortable operating in high-trust, high-autonomy environments – capable of driving work forward without rigid specifications • Strong DevOps experience, with ability to guide teams across CI/CD, observability, and infrastructure automation • Excellent communicator – able to explain technical detail clearly to non-technical stakeholders, and vice versa • Experience leading agile product teams and balancing speed, risk, and scalability Desirable: • Background in healthcare, regulated industries, or platforms with clinical / operational complexity • Understanding of the intersection between product strategy, user needs, and engineering delivery • Experience contributing to roadmap planning and strategic decision-making at a leadership level The role is 3 days in Manchester per week and paying £80k.