Lead Engineer

Lyst; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A global fashion shopping platform is seeking a Lead Engineer to guide the technical direction of the team and oversee innovative software solutions. The ideal candidate will be hands-on, possess mentoring skills, and drive the technical vision for impactful projects. The role offers a dynamic working environment with a culture focused on collaboration, continuous learning, and technical excellence.

Benefits

29 holidays per year

Clothing allowance up to £1,000

Comprehensive private healthcare

Annual training allowance of £1,000

Pension scheme with employer contributions

Cycle-to-work scheme

Social events and team activities

Qualifications

• Experience in managing and mentoring engineers.
• Strong background in software engineering.
• Ability to explain technical risks to non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical vision and architecture for complex features.
• Mentor engineers and foster engineering culture.
• Collaborate to define product and technical roadmaps.

Skills

Technical authority

Hands-on delivery

Mentorship

Agile process management

Strategic thinking

Communication with stakeholders

Tools

Python

Django

Flask

React

TypeScript

AWS

Docker

PostgreSQL

Job description

Lyst is a global fashion shopping platform founded in London in 2010, catering to over 160M shoppers per year. We curate pieces from 27,000 of the world’s leading brands and stores. In 2025, Lyst joined forces with Zozo, operators of Zozotown (Japan’s leading fashion e-commerce platform). This partnership marks a bold new era for Lyst as we accelerate our vision to transform the future of fashion shopping through AI and technology.

The Mission: We are looking for an experienced Lead Engineer to join our Product Development tribe. This is a high-impact role for a technical leader who wants to remain hands‑on while guiding the technical direction of a squad. You will act as the technical anchor in a leadership trio (alongside Product and Design), translating ambiguous business problems into robust, scalable software solutions.

The Role: Architect, Builder, Mentor This role is designed for a force multiplier—someone who writes excellent code but creates even more value by enabling the team around them. It is an ideal launchpad for those looking to progress their career in either direction (towards a Staff/Principal Engineer or a management track).

• Technical Authority: You are the guardian of the technical vision. You will lead system design sessions, own the architecture for complex features, and make the hard calls on technical trade‑offs.
• Hands‑on Delivery: You will be in the codebase daily. Whether it's building the skeleton of a new service, refactoring a legacy bottleneck, or pairing with engineers to unblock them, you lead from the front.
• Mentorship over Management: You are responsible for technical growth—mentoring engineers, design pairing and fostering a culture of engineering excellence.
• Strategic Alignment: You will collaborate with Product and Engineering Leadership to define a 6‑month product and technical roadmap that aligns with business goals.

Within your first 3 months, you will:

• Impact: Ship meaningful features or optimisation that impacts our 160M+ users.
• System Ownership: Assess our current architecture and CI/CD practices, identifying a number of key areas for improvement.
• Delivery: Assess your team's agile ceremonies, practices and tooling; begin implementing iterative changes to improve velocity and happiness.
• Leadership: Establish yourself as the “go-to” technical voice for Product and other Stakeholders, bridging the gap between business requirements and engineering reality.

The Tech Stack & Culture We work in a “You build it, you ship it, you operate it” culture. We have a rapid delivery culture, supported by the following stack:

• Backend: Python (Django/Flask)
• Frontend: React & TypeScript (BFF pattern)
• Infrastructure: Fully Cloud‑Native (AWS), Docker, PostgreSQL
• Ops: CI/CD (GitHub Actions), Observability tools.

• People‑First Mindset: Proven experience managing and mentoring engineers. You know how to inspire a team, create a collaborative culture and are highly effective in performance management.

• Delivery Expertise: You balance people with structured and data‑driven approaches. You know how to use Agile/Lean processes to make delivery painless and predictable.
• Technical Expertise: You have a strong background in software engineering building web and/or app products and system design. You can compartmentalize complex problems and guide a team toward robust architectural solutions.
• Communication: You can explain technical risks to non‑technical stakeholders and translate business goals into engineering tasks.
• Strategic Thinking: You can balance the immediate need to ship features with the long‑term need for platform reliability and scalability.

Bonus points if you have experience with high‑traffic consumer/ecommerce platforms or Python/React stacks.

Our Ways of Working:

• We all come into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the option to work remotely or come into the office on the other days. We believe that in‑person collaboration and community spirit is super important, which is why we spend some of our time in the office and some of our time at home.
• Time Off: In addition to the 8 statutory bank holidays, you will receive 29 holidays per year. Lyst’s holiday year runs from 1 April to 31 March.
• Competitive Family Leave Package: This includes Enhanced Family Leave for those eligible, paid Time off for Dependents and Support for Fertility Treatment & Loss.
• Clothing Benefit: We want you to enjoy using the Lyst app and site as much as our customers, so we provide you with a clothing allowance to use on Lyst every year. This starts at £250 when you join and increases up to £1,000 with your length of service.
• Private Healthcare: Our healthcare provider is Vitality. Your health is important to us which is why we offer all employees a comprehensive healthcare scheme from the day you start.
• Training Allowance: We’re big on continuous learning and growth, so all employees are currently entitled to an annual training allowance of £1,000. This can be used to attend conferences, industry events, training courses and to purchase resources.
• Pension Scheme: Our pension provider is The People’s Pension. We offer a minimum employee contribution of 5% and 3% employer contribution.
• Eye Tests and Vouchers: Employees can make a saving on their eye test and glasses through our chosen provider. You’ll receive a free eye test every year and a discount towards glasses.
• Cycle‑to‑Work Scheme: Lyst will purchase a bicycle from your chosen retailer, you will then receive a voucher to pick up your bicycle from them.
• Transport Season Ticket Loan: Employees can apply for an interest free season ticket loan to support your travel to work.
• Social Events: Frequent company wide social events including Christmas & summer parties, sports days, themed drinks, quizzes, cook‑alongs, as well as smaller team socials. We also have plenty of interest based groups such as football, running club, book club, culinary and more.

We want to build a world where fashion works for everyone, and we want teams that are just as inclusive. Diversity and inclusion is an integral part of our culture at Lyst. We recognise and celebrate the value and impact diversity brings to our company and are committed to ensuring this is a consistent focus, for which we are held to account. We are committed to treating all applicants fairly and equally, and encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply for this role. We are happy to talk about flexible working arrangements.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Lyst we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.