Engineering Team Lead

LDMS

Cardiff

Hybrid

GBP 45,000 - 75,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

25 days annual leave

Private health insurance

Pension (3% / 5% contribution)

Salary sacrifice schemes (cycle to, EV

Season ticket loan

Job summary

LDMS is seeking an Engineering Team Lead in Cardiff to guide a 6–8 engineer group split into two teams delivering financial software for partners and clients. The role focuses on delivery output and developing the people under your supervision.

You will mentor engineers, run one-to-ones, hire strong performers, and drive technical direction while maintaining a lean, efficient way of working. This hybrid role offers flexible working and growth opportunities.

Qualifications

Hands-on software development understanding, ideally with Java/Spring Boot.
Proven ability to plan, track and deliver software projects including dependencies and trade-offs.
Experience managing stakeholders and communicating delivery status clearly to non-technical audiences.
Line management experience or strong coaching/mentoring track record.

Responsibilities

Set technical direction for the teams and align decisions with product goals.
Guide design and technical decisions to improve quality and learning across teams.
Spot technical debt early and ensure engineering standards are adopted across teams.
Plan and track delivery across both teams, raising risks and scope changes early.
Break complex work into deliverable increments with clear dependencies and acceptance criteria.
Run delivery sessions and workshops to shape and unblock work.
Communicate decisions and trade-offs clearly to product and non-technical colleagues.
Interview and hire strong engineers into the teams.
Build a strong team culture with high standards and psychological safety.
Encourage use of AI to improve speed and quality while remaining honest about limits.
Maintain lean, purposeful processes and avoid unnecessary meetings.

Skills

Java / Spring Boot

Technical leadership

Stakeholder management

People management

Data-driven decisions

Job description

Job Title: Engineering Team Lead

Location: Cardiff

Hybrid / Flexible Working

Salary: Up to £75,000 depending on experience plus a potential bonus up to £15,000

Engineering team at LDMS, reporting to Engineering Management and leading 6–8 engineers organized into two teams that build financial software for our partners and clients.

This leadership role focuses on teams’ delivery output and the development of the people in them.

Key Responsibilities

Set clear technical direction for your teams, keeping decisions aligned to team and product goals.
Guide design and technical decisions and support a review culture that raises quality and teaches, rather than just approves.
Spot technical debt early and work closely with your lead/senior engineers to ensure engineering standards are adopted across both teams.
Plan and track delivery across both teams, raising risks and scope changes early.
Break complex work into deliverable increments with clear dependencies and acceptance criteria.
Run delivery sessions and workshops, such as whiteboarding an area, to shape and unblock work.
Keep an eye on dependencies between your teams and with other teams and flag them early.
Make sensible trade‑offs on scope, quality and pace under pressure, and keep delivery moving.
Balance the team’s time between product features and technical debt.
Keep the team’s ways of working lean and adaptable, using process and meetings where they genuinely help rather than running them by default.
Mentor and coach your engineers through guidance, review and honest career conversations.
Run regular, structured one-to-ones focused on growth, wellbeing and clearing blockers.
Give direct, evidence-based feedback and support each person’s development and progression.
Interview and hire strong engineers into your teams.
Build a strong team culture with high standards and psychological safety.
Encourage the team to use AI where it clearly helps them work faster or produce better software, and to be honest about where it doesn’t.
Make sensible use of AI and automation part of how the team works day to day, rather than something tried once and dropped.
Use simple measures of how the team is doing to spot progress and catch work that’s slipping or running over.
Communicate your teams’ technical decisions and trade-offs clearly to product and non-technical colleagues.
Manage stakeholder expectations proactively, so status updates contain no surprises.
Escalate issues to Engineering Management at the right time and in the right way, with options rather than problems.
Communicate release content to customers and support their delivery questions, giving confidence in what’s coming and when.

Essential

A strong understanding of how good software gets built (preferably hands‑on in Java/Spring Boot), with the technical judgement to guide design decisions, PR reviews and assess quality across your teams.
A proven track record of planning, tracking and delivering software projects, including managing dependencies and trade-offs.
Experience managing stakeholders and communicating delivery status, risks and trade‑offs clearly to non‑technical and customer‑facing audiences, in writing and in person.
Line management experience, or a strong track record of coaching and mentoring with the readiness to take on formal line management.
A genuine interest in progressing engineers’ careers.
Comfortable using data and metrics to report progress and identify problems early.

Desirable

An interest in using AI to help teams build software.
Experience within the financial sector.
Experience in front end development (preferably in React/Typescript).
Experience working with modern Continuous Integration tooling, such as Jenkins.
Experience debugging and troubleshooting issues using monitoring and observability tooling, such as Grafana, Prometheus or equivalent.

Values