Lead Developer

First Military Recruitment Ltd; City Of London; On-site; GBP 101,000 - 166,000; Full time

Job summary

First Military Recruitment Ltd is seeking a Lead Developer in London to provide hands-on technical leadership within a multidisciplinary delivery squad. You will translate user and business needs into secure, maintainable technical solutions while ensuring engineering standards and strategic direction.

The role also coaches developers, improves tooling, and promotes automated testing and observability. The ideal candidate has strong development experience with C#, .NET, REST APIs, and experience

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on development experience.
• Proven delivery of software using C#, .NET, RESTful APIs.
• Experience leading developers in agile delivery teams.
• Ability to design secure, maintainable systems with medium-high complexity.
• SC Security Clearance.

Responsibilities

• Act as technical lead for a development team.
• Translate business needs into secure, maintainable technical solutions.
• Make local technical decisions aligned with architectural direction.
• Coach, mentor, and pair-program with developers.
• Ensure engineering standards, security and quality controls.
• Collaborate with Principal Developers, DevOps, and product teams.
• Promote automated testing, CI/CD, observability, and reusable tooling.
• Support agile delivery with emphasis on user value and outcomes.

Skills

C#

.NET

REST APIs

SQL Server

Git

CI/CD

Angular/React/Vue

Technical Leadership

Tools

Azure DevOps

Job description

HM79: Lead Developer

Location: London | 6 Month Contract | 2 days in office

Salary: Competitive Day Rate | Inside IR35

Overview

First Military Recruitment are currently seeking a Lead Developer on behalf of one of our clients.

The main purpose of this role is to provide hands‑on technical leadership within a multidisciplinary delivery squad, ensuring the high‑quality delivery of digital products and services that support users. The role acts as a key link between Principal Developers and development teams, translating user and business needs into secure, maintainable technical solutions while ensuring engineering standards, strategic technical direction and good development practices are applied consistently.

The role will also support the development of the wider Engineering capability by coaching developers, guiding technical decision-making, improving ways of working, and helping introduce shared improvements such as automated testing, observability, reusable components and developer tooling.

Our client encourages applications from ex‑military personnel however all candidates will be given due consideration.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Acting as the technical lead for a development team, helping to shape, coordinate and assure technical delivery.
• Translating user and business needs into well‑designed, secure and maintainable technical solutions.
• Making local technical decisions that align with wider architectural direction, engineering standards and organisational priorities.
• Supporting and developing developers through coaching, mentoring, pairing and knowledge sharing.
• Ensuring engineering standards, development practices, security expectations and quality controls are applied consistently.
• Working closely with Principal Developers, DevOps colleagues, product teams and other stakeholders to ensure effective knowledge transfer and joined‑up delivery.
• Supporting improvements across Engineering, including automated testing, CI/CD, observability, reusable components, shared tooling and developer experience improvements.
• Helping the team work effectively in an agile environment, maintaining focus on user value, outcomes, quality and value for money.

Skills and Qualifications

• Strong hands‑on technical development experience.
• Proven experience delivering software using C#, .NET, .NET Core/.NET Framework, RESTful APIs, SQL/SQL Server, Git, CI/CD pipelines, web technologies and modern frontend frameworks such as Angular, React or Vue.
• Experience leading developers within a multidisciplinary or agile delivery team, including coaching, mentoring, pairing, coordinating technical work and helping teams apply good engineering practices consistently.
• Ability to design, review and deliver systems with medium to high levels of technical or business complexity, ensuring appropriate technology choices, secure design, maintainability, performance, integration and adherence to modern standards.
• SC Security Clearance.

Desirable

• Experience in public sector, Parliaments, government, regulated or complex stakeholder environments would be useful but should not be essential.

Location: London | 6 Month Contract | 2 days in office

Salary: Competitive Day Rate | Inside IR35