Lead Software Engineer

Understanding Recruitment; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Understanding Recruitment is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to head a full stack team in a hybrid role in Central London. You will balance architectural leadership with active hands-on development (Next.js/React.js on the frontend and Kotlin on the JVM) while guiding a small squad and collaborating with product managers and customers to deliver scalable, customer-facing energy platforms.

The role emphasizes hands-on delivery (about 70%) and people management (about 30%), with a focus on modern

Qualifications

• Deep fullstack engineering experience and architectural leadership.
• Experience scaling production systems in fast-moving product environments.
• Experience leading technical ownership and people management.
• Strong collaboration with stakeholders and product managers.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve platform architecture across distributed systems.
• Lead a small squad with technical leadership and people management.
• Contribute to fullstack design using Next.js (60%) and Kotlin (40%).
• Work directly with customers, stakeholders and product managers.
• Collaborate across engineering to improve practices, tooling and system design.
• Grow and shape your team.

Skills

Fullstack engineering

Frontend experience

Architectural leadership

People management

Tools

Next.js

React.js

Kotlin

Springboot

Ktor

AWS

Job description

Lead Software Engineer (Full Stack Team - React.js/JVM)

Hybrid - 3 days onsite in Central London (Zone 1)

Want to manage and lead a team that builds tech accelerating the move to clean, affordable energy?

Enjoy being hands-on and thrive in fast-growing, product-led environments?

Join a high-calibre engineering team building modern, customer-facing and energy-focused systems in one of the UK’s most exciting clean tech companies.

As the Technical Lead, you will manage a small pod while remaining hands-on with day-to-day coding. You’ll spearhead the design, architecture and implementation of complex systems and features and work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to define technical requirements and translate them into clear, actionable plans. This opportunity is 70% hands-on and 30% people management and line manager responsibilities.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build and evolve platform architecture across distributed systems.
• Lead a small squad (technical leadership and people management)
• Contribute to fullstack design using Next.js (60%) and Kotlin (40%), supporting a polyglot mindset.
• Work directly with customers/stakeholders and product managers
• Collaborate across engineering to improve practices, tooling and system design.
• Grow and shape your team

Next.js, React.js, Kotlin (JVM), Springboot, Ktor, AI tooling, AWS, distributed systems, microservices, CI/CD, modern engineering practices and methodologies

What They’re Looking For

• Deep fullstack engineering experience; any Frontend & JVM backgrounds
• Strong systems thinker with a track record of architectural leadership.
• Experience scaling production systems in fast-moving product environments.
• Experience with leading, technical ownership and people management

Want to work on complex problems with real-world environmental impact?