Lead Cloud Engineer

hedgehog lab; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

28 days holiday + bank holidays

Learning budget + time for training

Wellbeing days and budget

Enhanced sick pay and parental leave

Job summary

hedgehog lab is a digital product consultancy delivering apps and websites for public and private sector clients. We seek a lead cloud/DevOps engineer to steer technical decisions, design cloud architectures, and deliver AI-enabled workflows across client projects.

You will design, implement, and operate production cloud infra (primarily AWS) while mentoring teams and contributing to pre-sales and estimation activities. Location-flexible within the UK, with hybrid work options.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and running production cloud infrastructure, ideally on AWS.
• Background in software or cloud engineering with leadership capability.
• Experience building with AI agents and agentic workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical decisions and requirements on projects.
• Design the cloud infrastructure and how components fit together.
• Build proofs of concept to test designs early.
• Write production code and agentic workflows with AI agents.
• Run the cloud infrastructure and DevOps on projects.

Skills

Cloud architecture

Production cloud infra

AI agent workflows

Lead / tech leadership

Communicate decisions

AWS experience

Tools

AWS

TypeScript

Python

Node.js

Job description

Set the direction, then build it

You’ll decide how a client’s product should be built, then build it with the team.

What’s in it for you

You’ll work with clients from the first conversation, alongside delivery and product.

You’ll be matched to projects on your skills, so you won’t be put on something just because you’re free.

You’ll keep learning, because how we build with AI has changed a lot in two years and is still changing.

Who you’ll be doing it for

hedgehog lab is a digital product consultancy with 20 years behind us. We build apps and websites for public and private sector clients in health tech, retail and financial services.

Our project teams are 5 to 15 people, made up of agentic engineers, software engineers, QA and designers.

We’re a certified B Corp and Great Place to Work certified, with around 100 people across the UK and Europe.

What you’ll be doing

Most of your time:

• Leading the technical decisions and requirements on your projects

• Designing the cloud infrastructure and how the components fit together

• Building proofs of concept to test designs early

• Writing production code and agentic workflows with AI agents

• Running the cloud infrastructure and DevOps on your projects

Some of your time:

• Working with clients to break down the scope and structure of what needs building

• Supporting engineers with less cloud experience

• Helping with pre-sales and estimating new work

What comes with the role

Benefits include:

• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays

• 5 Impact Days for learning, innovation or volunteering

• 2 wellbeing days and a wellbeing budget

• Learning budget plus time for training and conferences

• Enhanced sick pay and parental leave

Where you’ll work

There are no set office days, but we value time together and with clients. You’ll need to live within 50 miles of our Leeds or Manchester office.

What you’ll need

• Experience designing and running production cloud infrastructure yourself, ideally on AWS. Our stack is TypeScript, Python and Node.

• A background in software or cloud engineering. You might be a lead cloud engineer, tech lead, DevOps lead or solutions architect today.

• Experience building with AI agents, such as an agentic workflow you’ve shipped.

• A solid grasp of architecture, from working closely with architects even if you haven’t been one.

• Confidence explaining technical decisions to non-technical people.

Nice to have:

• Pre-sales or estimation experience

• Consultancy or agency background