Engineering Lead – Web Platforms

Unite Students; West of England; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary annual bonus

25 days' holiday with holiday buying

Generous pension scheme (5-11%)

Healthcare Cash Plan

Employee Assistance Programme

Wellbeing platform

Gym benefit for you and family

ShareSave scheme

Employee Life Assurance

Discounts portal

Job summary

Unite Students is seeking a Web Engineering Lead to shape a future-ready trading platform. You will own the Web Domain architecture, set engineering standards, and drive secure, scalable delivery with headless, multi-brand architecture.

The role combines strategic leadership with hands-on technical guidance across teams and external partners. You’ll influence engineering quality, enable CI/CD improvements, and manage reliability and security while optimizing cloud costs in AWS.

Qualifications

• Experience leading the architecture and evolution of complex, customer-facing web platforms.
• Strong knowledge of JavaScript/TypeScript, Node.js, React/Next.js, APIs and cloud technologies, ideally AWS.
• A track record of improving engineering quality, establishing standards and influencing across multiple teams.
• Experience managing engineering partners and driving accountability for technical quality and delivery.
• Understanding of production service ownership, including reliability, security, observability and cloud cost management.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to challenge, influence and bring people together.
• An interest in using AI-assisted engineering tools thoughtfully to improve productivity and quality.

Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction: Own the architecture and technical roadmap for our Web Domain, making the right decisions for today and as the platform evolves.
• Build our next-generation trading platform: Lead the move to a modern, headless, multi-brand architecture that can scale with the business.
• Make great engineering the standard: Help teams write better code, build reusable components and follow consistent engineering practices.
• Improve how we build and release software: Strengthen testing, code quality, CI/CD and release processes with internal teams and external partners.
• Keep the platform running at its best: Ensure performance, security, reliability and monitoring, especially during critical trading periods.
• Own our AWS environment: Ensure cloud infrastructure is secure, reliable, well-managed and cost-effective.
• Bring people together around the right solutions: Collaborate with technology leaders and partners to move initiatives forward.

Skills

Tech leadership

JS/TS

Node.js

React/Next.js

AWS / cloud

Architectural direction

Code quality & standards

Tools

CI/CD tooling

Cloud platforms (AWS)

Job description

The Role

Are you an experienced engineering leader ready to shape the future of a major digital trading platform? We're embarking on a significant, Board-backed transformation to rebuild our trading platform using a modern, headless, multi-brand architecture — and we're looking for a Web Engineering Lead to play a pivotal role in bringing that vision to life.

You’ll own the Web Domain's architecture, engineering standards and operational health, driving technical direction and engineering excellence to deliver a secure, scalable and resilient platform. Combining strategic influence with hands‑on technical leadership, you'll work collaboratively across the business and with external engineering partners to shape our technology, raise engineering standards and deliver lasting improvements that support our future growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Set the technical direction: Own the architecture and technical roadmap for our Web Domain, making the right decisions for today and as the platform evolves.
• Build our next‑generation trading platform: Lead the move to a modern, headless, multi‑brand architecture that can scale with the business.
• Make great engineering the standard: Help teams write better code, build reusable components and follow consistent engineering practices.
• Improve how we build and release software: Work with our teams and external engineering partners to strengthen testing, code quality, CI/CD and release processes.
• Keep the platform running at its best: Take responsibility for performance, security, reliability and monitoring, particularly during critical trading periods.
• Own our AWS environment: Ensure our cloud infrastructure is secure, reliable, well‑managed and cost‑effective.
• Bring people together around the right solutions: Work closely with technology leaders, internal teams and engineering partners to solve problems, make sound technical decisions and move things forward.

What We're Looking For In You

• Experience leading the architecture and evolution of complex, customer‑facing web platforms.
• Strong technical knowledge of JavaScript/TypeScript, Node.js, React/Next.js, APIs and cloud technologies, ideally AWS.
• A track record of improving engineering quality, establishing standards and influencing across multiple teams.
• Experience managing engineering partners and driving accountability for technical quality and delivery.
• Understanding of production service ownership, including reliability, security, observability and cloud cost management.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to challenge, influence and bring people together.
• An interest in using AI‑assisted engineering tools thoughtfully to improve productivity and quality.

You don't need to tick every box. We're looking for someone with strong engineering fundamentals, sound architectural judgement and the ambition to make a real difference to our technology platform.

What You'll Get In Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company's success
• 25 days' paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service
• A generous pension scheme – employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non‑birthing parents
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is the UK`s largest provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 23 leading university towns and cities, with over 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students, and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we’re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with passion. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.

We are US.