Lead Developer: Tech Strategy & Mentorship (Hybrid)

The Methodist Church in Britain; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension contribution (Govt)

Hybrid working

Learning budget

Personal development time

Annual leave and holidays

Parental leave

Job summary

The Ministry of Justice is offering a Lead Developer role within the Legal Aid Agency Digital team. This position combines hands-on software development with mentoring and managing developers, shaping technical direction with architects and product managers, and contributing to a sustainable technical roadmap.

We expect strong experience guiding complex technical decisions, delivering value through DevOps practices, and coaching teams to achieve high performance.

Qualifications

• Experience guiding complex technical decisions and shaping technical strategy.
• Experience nurturing a culture of good software practice that enables change.
• Experience delivering value through DevOps, XP or other agile methods.
• Experience coaching or managing other people.
• Experience building or contributing to a community of practice.
• Security Check (SC) clearance and willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, coach and manage software developers within a business domain, focused on wellbeing and development.
• Set product direction with technical architects and product managers.
• Help design systems and build coherent, sustainable technical roadmaps.
• Lead discussions with developers to reach consensus on technical and team decisions.
• Support backlog refinement, planning and prioritisation of actionable tasks.
• Carry out hands-on software development.
• Support delivery managers in unblocking work, giving honest effort estimates and improving team maturity.
• Promote knowledge sharing and documentation of systems through brown bags and workshops.
• Maintain coding standards and practices with principal developers and the wider community.
• Help shape the wider technical strategy of the business unit.
• Keep up with emerging technologies and encourage open discussion.
• Take part in recruiting and onboarding developers.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Technical decision-making

DevOps/Agile

Communication

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

Java

Python

Ruby

TypeScript

JavaScript

Semantic HTML

Job description

The Ministry of Justice is offering a Lead Developer role within the Legal Aid Agency Digital team. This position combines hands-on software development with mentoring and managing developers, shaping technical direction with architects and product managers, and contributing to a sustainable technical roadmap.

We expect strong experience guiding complex technical decisions, delivering value through DevOps practices, and coaching teams to achieve high performance.