Lead Developer

Spencer Richardson; Winsford; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Spencer Richardson in the United Kingdom is seeking a hands-on Lead Developer to own architecture, drive technical direction, and lead a small engineering team. This role requires designing scalable systems, setting standards, and shipping production-ready software across the platform.

You will take ownership of platform architecture, ensure engineering excellence, and translate product vision into reliable, scalable services with robust CI/CD pipelines and secure APIs.

Qualifications

• Strong Laravel experience in production environments.
• Proven background in system architecture.
• Experience building or scaling microservices-based systems.
• Hands-on experience with AWS cloud infrastructure.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems principles.
• Strong SQL and data modelling skills.
• Experience with CI/CD and Git workflows.
• Leadership experience in a technical environment.
• Clear communicator who can bridge business and engineering.

Responsibilities

• Own technical architecture and system design.
• Lead a small team and raise the engineering bar.
• Design scalable applications using Laravel.
• Architect microservices and modular systems where appropriate.
• Build secure, high-performance REST APIs.
• Implement queue-based and event-driven systems.
• Own CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategy.
• Improve performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Lead sprint planning and technical roadmap discussions.
• Conduct code reviews and mentor developers.
• Own and resolve production issues when it matters most.

Skills

Laravel

System architecture

Microservices

AWS

Distributed systems

SQL & data modelling

CI/CD & Git

Leadership

Communication

Tools

Terraform

Job description

This is an exciting new role working for an award winning and growing Tech company.

We’re looking for a hands‑on Lead Developer to own architecture, drive technical direction, and lead a small engineering team. This is a role for someone who doesn’t just write code, but designs systems, sets standards, and ships scalable software.

You will take ownership of their platform architecture, ensure engineering excellence, and turn product vision into reliable, production‑ready systems.

What You’ll Do

• Own technical architecture and system design.
• Lead a small team and raise the engineering bar.
• Design scalable applications using Laravel.
• Architect microservices and modular systems where appropriate.
• Build secure, high‑performance REST APIs.
• Implement queue‑based and event‑driven systems.
• Design systems with scalability, reliability, and fault tolerance in mind.
• Own CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategy.
• Improve performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Lead sprint planning and technical roadmap discussions.
• Conduct code reviews and mentor developers.
• Own and resolve production issues when it matters most.

What We’re Looking For

• Strong Laravel experience in production environments.
• Proven background in system architecture.
• Experience building or scaling microservices‑based systems.
• Hands‑on experience with AWS cloud infrastructure.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems principles.
• Strong SQL and data modelling skills.
• Experience with CI/CD and Git workflows.
• Leadership experience in a technical environment.
• Clear communicator who can bridge business and engineering.

Bonus Points

• Experience scaling a SaaS platform.
• Terraform or Infrastructure as Code.
• Observability tooling (monitoring, logging, tracing).
• Performance tuning at scale.
• Experience hiring or growing engineering teams.