Engineering Lead

Spencer Rose; Gloucester; Hybrid; GBP 111,000 - 166,000; Full time

Job summary

Spencer Rose are urgently seeking an experienced Engineering Lead to drive end-to-end delivery for a banking client on a minimum 6-month contract, with extensions likely. The role is hybrid, requiring 2 days per week in the Bristol office, with a start ASAP and a day rate that is negotiable inside IR35.

The ideal candidate will bring 10+ years of leadership in engineering, hands-on experience across GCP, Spark, SQL, Python and Java, and strong stakeholder management skills.

Qualifications

• 10+ years leading large engineering teams in complex environments.
• 8+ years hands-on experience with modern tech stack (Java, Python, data tooling).
• Experience in banking/financial services projects or domains preferred.
• Strong stakeholder management and leadership capabilities.
• Experience working in Agile/SAFe environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead multiple engineering squads delivering complex banking solutions.
• Define engineering strategy, standards, and best practices.
• Drive engineering excellence, productivity improvements, and technical innovation.
• Establish development standards, code quality metrics, and governance controls.
• Mentor Technical Leads, Architects, and Senior Engineers.
• Own end-to-end technology delivery across programs and releases.
• Ensure commitments are delivered within scope, timeline, and budget.
• Manage dependencies across engineering, testing, DevOps, architecture, and business teams.
• Support release planning, capacity planning, and sprint governance.

Skills

Leadership

Cloud (GCP)

Big data technologies (Spark)

SQL

Python

Java

Agile/SAFe

Stakeholder management

Mentoring

Job description

Spencer Rose are urgently seeking an experienced Engineering Lead to work for our Banking client for a minimum 6 month contract (extensions highly likely), to start ASAP. Hybrid, 2 days a week in Bristol.

Start: ASAP (allowing up to 2 weeks for vetting and onboarding)
Day Rate: Negotiable - Inside IR35
Hybrid: 2 days a week in the Bristol office
Duration: 6 months initially

• 10+ years leading large engineering teams and 8+ years hands-on tech stack experience


• Hands-on experience with GCP, Spark, SQL, Python and Java (Java is a nice to have but not essential)


• Strong stakeholder management and leadership skills.


• Experience working in Agile/SAFe environments.

We are seeking an experienced Engineering Lead to drive end-to-end engineering delivery across strategic Banking initiatives. The ideal candidate will be responsible for leading multi-disciplinary and global engineering teams (Java Engineers, GCP Data Engineers and DevOps Engineers), providing technical direction, driving engineering excellence, ensuring delivery quality, and managing stakeholder relationships across business, architecture, operations, and delivery functions.

The role requires strong hands-on knowledge of modern engineering practices, cloud-native platforms, microservices architecture, DevOps, security, and large-scale transformation programs within the banking domain. Engineering Leads are expected to foster a culture of innovation, automation, quality, continuous improvement, and operational excellence while ensuring successful delivery of business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead multiple engineering squads delivering complex banking solutions.


• Define engineering strategy, standards, and best practices.


• Drive engineering excellence, productivity improvements, and technical innovation.


• Establish development standards, code quality metrics, and governance controls.


• Mentor Technical Leads, Architects, and Senior Engineers.


• Own end-to-end technology delivery across programs and releases.


• Ensure commitments are delivered within agreed scope, timeline, quality, and budget.


• Manage dependencies across engineering, testing, DevOps, architecture, and business teams.


• Support release planning, capacity planning, and sprint governance.