Lead Software Engineer

Bauer Media Outdoor; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading media business in Greater London is looking for a Lead Engineer to develop and oversee large-scale advertising products. The role involves mentoring engineers, setting technical standards, and delivering systems that are reliable and scalable. The ideal candidate will have at least eight years of experience in software engineering, with strong full stack capabilities and a background in ad tech. This position offers an opportunity to shape technical direction and influence the future of the advertising industry.

Qualifications

• At least eight years of software engineering experience.
• Experience working in ad tech or the advertising industry.
• Proficiency in modern engineering stacks and agile ways of working.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of key systems.
• Mentor and guide engineers through complex problem solving.
• Balance short term delivery with long term technical health.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Full stack capability

Strong communication skills

Mentoring

Cloud platforms

Tools

React

Node.js

AWS

SQL

Python

Job description

Overview

About us

Bauer Media is a leading media business reaching millions of people across Europe through audio, digital, and out of home advertising. We’re behind well known brands including Kiss, Absolute, Magic, Grazia, and Empire. Within our Outdoor division, we connect audiences through thousands of digital screens and poster sites in high impact locations.

This role sits within Bauer Media Outdoor at a pivotal moment. We are rethinking how brands buy, manage, and measure outdoor advertising, moving towards modern, scalable platforms across programmatic, self service, and data led products.

Build world class digital advertising platforms that operate at massive scale and power the future of Outdoor media.

Bauer Media Outdoor Tech vision

Create tech that makes a difference. Empower teams. Delight customers. Shape the media world of tomorrow.

What you will be working on

You will be building world class advertising products and ad tech that allow our employees and customers to discover advertising products, plan campaigns, target audiences using powerful proprietary data, manage campaigns and content, bid for inventory in real time, and view performance and impact.

A core part of the role is delivering an outstanding experience while ensuring platforms operate reliably, securely, and cost effectively at significant scale. You will play a key role in embedding AI into our products in a way that is practical, responsible, and valuable to the business.

Role focus

As a Lead Engineer, you are a senior technical leader who shapes technical direction and engineering excellence across products. You drive system design, set standards, and mentor engineers while remaining hands on with complex problem solving.

You will guide the development of large scale systems that support programmatic buying, self service experiences, data products, and AI enabled capabilities.

What you will do

• Lead the design, implementation, and evolution of key systems
• Hands on design and build of complex features and platform capabilities
• Set and uphold technical standards and engineering best practices
• Guide engineers through design reviews, mentoring, and hands on delivery
• Balance short term delivery with long term technical health
• Collaborate with Product, UX, and Data leads to shape technical roadmaps
• Act as a technical point of contact for cross functional stakeholders
• Develop deep understanding of the Outdoor advertising industry, business strategy, and customer needs
• Focus on non functional requirements including reliability, scalability, security, and cost effectiveness

How you will behave and act

• Coach and mentor engineers across teams
• Provide constructive feedback that raises overall engineering capability
• Lead through ambiguity and provide clarity and direction
• Resolve technical and delivery challenges using sound judgement
• Communicate complex technical concepts simply and effectively

What you will bring

• At least eight years of software engineering experience
• Experience working in ad tech or the advertising industry
• Strong full stack capability
• Proficiency in modern engineering stacks, cloud platforms, and agile ways of working
• Experience with APIs, data flows, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring
• Deep expertise in system design, cloud architecture, and distributed systems
• Experience delivering systems end to end from design through to production
• Accountability for products or large scale components with significant user volumes, transactions, or revenue
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate business context into technical solutions
• A genuine passion for mentoring and raising engineering standards

How success is measured

• Delivery of robust, scalable systems that generate measurable business value
• Clear technical direction and decision making across squads
• Improved delivery velocity and engineering quality
• Strong mentoring impact and growth of engineers across teams
• Consistent delivery against objectives and key results

The technology environment

Our Outdoor engineering teams work in a modern, cloud native environment. You do not need experience with everything listed, but you should be comfortable learning new tools and working across a varied stack.

Frontend and web

• React, Next.js, TypeScript

Backend and services

• Node.js, Python, serverless architectures

Datastores

• SQL and NoSQL technologies including Postgres and DynamoDB

Cloud and infrastructure

• AWS including Lambda, CloudWatch, API Gateway, and S3
• Infrastructure as Code using Terraform

Ways of working

• Agile delivery, embedded non functional requirements for scale, CI/CD automation, test driven development, observability, and modern DevOps practices