Lead Product Engineer

Inara; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Share options

25 days holiday + bank holidays + your

Vitality health insurance + cash plan

Enhanced pension + life insurance (4x)

Latest MacBook Pro + equipment budget

Flexible hybrid working

Job summary

Inara is seeking a Lead Product Engineer (Security SME) in Manchester, with strong backend and AWS focus. You’ll grow into the security SME for the engineering team, driving secure-by-default practices while working AI-first in a fast-scaling platform serving financial services clients worldwide.

The role is hybrid from Manchester (2-4 days a month in-office) with flexibility for UK-wide candidates, reporting to senior tech leadership and shaping the product’s security posture as you grow.

Qualifications

• Several years writing production software with strong backend experience.
• Highly experienced with AWS.
• Good understanding of infrastructure as code.
• AI-first approach to engineering, including hands-on experience with AI coding agents in production workflows.
• Genuine passion for building secure products, with a path to security SME.
• Strong product mindset: care about what you're building and why.

Responsibilities

• Build and own core backend services on AWS with multi-tenant isolation and encryption.
• Apply infrastructure as code across the AWS estate and shape deployment practices.
• Work inside a team using AI agents in the loop to ensure safe, effective AI usage.
• Develop the product's security posture and grow into the security SME role.
• Collaborate with VP of Engineering, Head of Platform, and CTO to raise secure-by-default practices.

Skills

Backend development

AWS expertise

Infrastructure as Code

AI in production

Security mindset

Product thinking

Job description

Location: Manchester (Hybrid, 2-4 days a month in the office, open to candidates from across the UK)

Salary: £80,000 - £110,000 (potentially some wiggle room for the right person)

We're working with a client we know well, a fast-scaling communications compliance platform processing hundreds of millions of events a month for financial services firms across the UK, US, and beyond. They protect regulated data for thousands of firms worldwide. The engineering bar is high, and the problems are genuinely interesting.

We've placed a number of people here and can genuinely vouch for the culture, the team, and the ambition of the business. They're growing fast, particularly across the US, and this is a pivotal hire as they scale.

The Role

This is a Lead Product Engineer (Security SME) position, with a strong backend and AWS focus. You don't need to be a security expert on day one. Our client is looking for a senior engineer with real product engineering craft, deep AWS experience, and a solid grasp of infrastructure as code, who has a genuine passion for building secure products and a clear ambition to grow into the security subject matter expert (SME) for the engineering team.

You'll be AI-first in how you work: comfortable building with AI coding agents in the loop, and thinking carefully about how to get the best out of that workflow rather than bolting AI on as an afterthought.

You'll work closely with the VP of Engineering, Head of Platform, and CTO, embedding inside the engineering team and growing, over time, into the person others turn to on security.

On location: the team works hybrid from Manchester, with an expectation of around 2-4 days a month in the office. It'll likely be more frequent in the first few months and taper off from there, so we're open to strong candidates from anywhere in the UK who can be flexible about travelling in.

What you'll be working on

• Building and owning core backend services on AWS: multi-tenant isolation, encryption and key management, IAM as code, application-layer hardening
• Applying infrastructure as code across the AWS estate, and helping shape how the wider team builds and deploys
• Working inside a team that ships with AI agents in the loop on every change, helping define how the team uses AI safely and effectively
• Building the foundations of the product's security posture (supply chain and dependency trust, detection, and incident response) as you grow into the SME role
• Partnering with the VP of Engineering, Head of Platform, and CTO to raise the bar on secure-by-default engineering practices across the team

What they're looking for

• Several years writing production software, with strong backend experience
• Highly experienced with AWS
• Good understanding of infrastructure as code
• An AI-first approach to engineering, including hands‑on experience with AI coding agents in production workflows
• A genuine passion for building secure products, and a clear desire to grow into a security SME role over time
• A strong product mindset: you care about what you're building and why, not just how

Desirable: some existing security interest or experience (detection engineering, supply-chain security, threat modelling), cloud-native AWS attack patterns, cryptography in practice, experience mentoring or influencing engineering practice across a team

The package

• £80,000 - £110,000 (some wiggle room for the right person)
• Share options
• 25 days holiday + bank holidays + your birthday off
• Vitality health insurance + cash plan
• Enhanced pension + life insurance (4x salary)
• Latest MacBook Pro + equipment budget
• Flexible hybrid working from Manchester, 2-4 office days a month, open to candidates from across the UK

What you won't find here

A CVE triage queue. A SOC rota. A compliance function dressed up as engineering. This is a role for someone who wants to build a great backend product, work AI‑first, and grow, over time, into the security expert the engineering team leans on. You don't need to arrive at the finished article.