Lead Backend Engineer - C++ | AI-Driven Platform (Hybrid)

Digital Waffle; Royal Leamington Spa; Hybrid; GBP 63,000 - 77,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Waffle is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to own and evolve the backend platform. This hands-on leadership role combines architectural delivery with mentoring and AI-enabled development to accelerate performance and quality.

You will collaborate with Product, Front End and R&D teams, shaping architecture, APIs and scalable services while driving velocity and engineering excellence in a hybrid Leamington Spa environment.

Qualifications

• Strong commercial experience as a lead backend engineer or similar.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and evolution of scalable backend systems and APIs.
• Take technical ownership of backend projects from planning through to production delivery.
• Work closely with Product Managers, Architects and Engineers to define technical requirements.
• Lead and mentor a team of backend engineers, supporting their development and technical progression.
• Drive improvements across architecture, performance, reliability and observability.
• Identify bottlenecks and optimise database queries, services and system performance.
• Evaluate and implement AI-powered tools to improve engineering productivity and software quality.
• Help shape the adoption of LLMs, AI-assisted development and modern AI engineering practices across the team.
• Lead sprint planning, stand-ups and retrospectives alongside Product and Delivery teams.
• Champion secure coding, testing, code review and engineering best practice.

Skills

C++

Backend leadership

Mentoring

Architecture

Agile

Tools

AI frameworks

Job description

Digital Waffle is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to own and evolve the backend platform. This hands-on leadership role combines architectural delivery with mentoring and AI-enabled development to accelerate performance and quality.

You will collaborate with Product, Front End and R&D teams, shaping architecture, APIs and scalable services while driving velocity and engineering excellence in a hybrid Leamington Spa environment.