Lead Pricing Engineer - Rating Platform & Automation

Hastings Insurance Services Limited; Leicester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading insurance provider in the UK is looking for a skilled Lead Pricing Engineer to lead a team in developing and optimizing pricing algorithms. This role involves hands-on technical leadership, working closely with multiple teams to ensure effective implementation of pricing strategies. The ideal candidate should have strong Python skills and experience in AI-assisted development along with effective stakeholder management capabilities. Competitive salary and benefits included.

Benefits

Competitive salary

£5k car allowance

Private medical insurance

27 days annual leave + bank holidays

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on experience in software engineering.
• Expert-level Python skills for developing pricing algorithms.
• Experience in AI-assisted engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead and collaborate with teams for optimized pricing solutions.
• Design and maintain pricing algorithms using Python.
• Conduct thorough testing of pricing changes before deployment.

Skills

Python programming

Machine Learning

Stakeholder management

SQL

Agile methodologies

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Azure

Git/GitHub

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Job Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled Lead Pricing Engineer to drive the development, optimisation, and governance of our underwriting pricing capabilities and rating platforms. You will lead a team of pricing engineers responsible for designing and implementing rating changes within our in‑house pricing and rating platform. The role combines hands‑on technical leadership with ownership of platform standards, code quality, automation, and delivery across multiple lines of business. You will work closely with underwriting, actuarial, data, ML engineering and QA teams to ensure pricing changes are built correctly, tested effectively, and released with confidence. Alongside delivery, you will play a central role in shaping how pricing engineering is done – evolving platform tooling, automation, and ways of working to improve the quality, scalability, and resilience of pricing delivery across the organisation. The ideal candidate is a strong engineer and people leader, comfortable writing and reviewing complex Python code, coaching engineers and analysts through peer review and technical guidance, supporting QA through effective test design, and influencing stakeholders across both technical and non‑technical teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead discussions and collaborate with cross‑functional teams to develop optimised solutions for pricing implementations, enhancing performance and efficiency while gaining a deep understanding of the business requirements.
• Drive the adoption of modern engineering techniques and intelligent automation, including AI‑assisted development and testing practices, into production and day‑to‑day pricing delivery where appropriate.
• Lead and collaborate on projects to ensure the seamless integration of new capabilities across multiple lines of business, proactively addressing obstacles from early development through to delivery.
• Design, develop, and maintain pricing algorithms using expert‑level Python skills, ensuring alignment with strategic goals and high standards of quality and control.
• Lead and conduct thorough testing of pricing changes before deployment, identifying errors, and ensuring accuracy and effectiveness of implementation.
• Lead pre‑release activities, including code reviews, testing and preparing changes for release to ensure pricing updates are implemented accurately.
• Maintain strong communication and organisational skills to manage multiple initiatives and report progress clearly and consistently.
• Develop comprehensive documentation for implementations, strategies, and data pipelines, ensuring they are well‑governed, transparent and compliant with internal controls.
• Strategically manage resources across multiple lines of business to maximise value, efficiency, and delivery capacity.
• Lead and mentor pricing engineers, establishing a Centre of Excellence to provide technical guidance, support, and best practices in pricing implementation and coding.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Strong hands‑on experience in software engineering, with exposure to ML engineering or advanced analytics environments.
• Expert‑level Python skills, with experience developing and maintaining complex pricing algorithms or decision logic.
• Proven experience leading AI‑assisted engineering practices, including hands‑on use of LLM‑based tools to support development, testing, validation, and documentation, with clear ownership of standards, controls, and governance for production use.
• Practical experience working in Azure cloud environments, using version control systems (e.g. Git/GitHub), and operating CI/CD pipelines.
• Proficiency with SQL and experience working with data visualisation or analysis techniques.
• Strong stakeholder‑management and influencing skills, with the ability to balance technical, commercial, and governance considerations.
• Excellent problem‑solving skills, with the ability to navigate complex pricing and engineering challenges and deliver robust solutions.
• Experience delivering complex initiatives in Agile environments, using approaches such as Scrum, Kanban, BDD, TDD, or Extreme Programming.

EEO Statement

At Hastings Direct, we're committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, we encourage you to be open with us. Our recruitment team is here to provide the support you need to ensure a fair and accessible experience for all. As a Disability Confident employer, we're committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive – what this means to you is if you're applying for a job with us, you'll have fair access to support and adjustments throughout your recruitment journey. We also welcome applications through the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). For more information on the DCS, please visit our inclusive business page on our careers website.

Company Culture

We're a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become the best and biggest in the UK market. We provide insurance for over four million customers and have made huge investments in our pricing and data capabilities over the past few years, alongside nurturing our 4Cs culture. Great pricing is built on trust, innovation and precision, so our aim is to ensure customers receive a fair and accurate price based on their individual risk, supporting fair outcomes, while delivering sustainable and profitable growth for our company. Pricing is more than just a number – it's a strategic capability. At the heart of Hastings is deep risk insight – continually improving how we assess, segment and price risk through data and analytics.

Join Us

Join us and you'll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company and community. As one of our colleagues, you'll be helping to drive our growth, so in return, we'll give you all the support, training and development you need. Not to mention plenty of recognition and rewards, and the scope to voice your ideas and put them into practice.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and £5k car allowance.
• Flexible hybrid working approach – discuss details with your recruiter.
• Competitive bonus scheme – eligible for our annual 4Cs performance bonus.
• Physical wellbeing – private medical insurance (PMI) for Band 4 colleagues.
• Financial wellbeing – 4x salary life assurance cover, income protection at no extra cost, matched pension contributions up to 10%, plus discounts, cashback, free independent mortgage advice and free access to financial wellbeing support.
• Mental wellbeing programme – Thrive mental health app, colleague assistance programme 24/7, in‑house mental health first aiders, support groups and a dedicated team.
• 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with options to buy or sell a week.
• Additional perks – health care cash‑back plans, dental plans, discounted health assessments, cycle‑to‑work and tech schemes, discounted and free onsite facilities, social events throughout the year and much more.