Lead Software Engineer

Hydrogen Group; Greater London, Liverpool, Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 66,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Hydrogen Group is partnering with a leading UK wealth and asset management organisation to appoint an Engineering Lead who will provide hands-on technical leadership across wealth planning domains. You will set engineering standards, shape architecture, mentor engineers and drive modern AI-enabled capabilities across the business.

The role requires strong leadership with wealth management experience, plus hands-on software expertise in cloud-based environments.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as Engineering Lead or similar senior role.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development and operation of applications and services within the financial planning/wealth management domain.
• Set and maintain high engineering standards covering code quality, testing, documentation, and release management.
• Own and influence architectural decisions for scalable and secure solutions.
• Lead technical design reviews and provide direction to engineers.
• Balance technical debt with business delivery priorities.
• Champion modern SDLC practices including CI/CD, Git, automated testing and code review.
• Design and develop APIs, microservices and serverless apps.
• Work with Python and/or Java to develop backend services and integrations.
• Support cloud-based engineering and modernise existing tech capabilities.
• Collaborate with data platforms like Snowflake.
• Ensure security and data protection best practices.
• Mentor engineers to raise team capability.
• Work with stakeholders, architects, compliance and other tech leaders.
• Operate with a build it, run it mindset.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Hands-on software engineering

Cloud platforms

CI/CD & DevOps

API design

Mentoring engineers

Wealth/asset management domain

AI engineering capability

Tools

Snowflake

Git

GitHub Copilot

Claude Code

AWS

Azure

Job description

Engineering Lead – Wealth & Asset Management

Location:

London, Glasgow or Liverpool

Salary:

Up to £110,000 London | £98,000 Glasgow | £94,000 Liverpool

Type:

Permanent

Hybrid:

Yes

About the Role

We are working with a leading UK wealth and asset management organisation that is investing heavily in its engineering and AI capabilities.

They are looking for an Engineering Lead to provide technical leadership across a key financial planning and wealth management engineering domain.

This is a hands-on engineering leadership role. You will set engineering standards, make architectural decisions, support delivery, mentor engineers and help shape how modern engineering and AI capabilities are adopted across the organisation.

Importantly, previous iRess Xplan experience is not required. The priority is strong engineering leadership combined with experience within wealth management, asset management, investment management or broader financial services.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead the design, development and operation of applications and services within the financial planning/wealth management domain.
• Set and maintain high engineering standards covering code quality, testing, documentation and release management.
• Own and influence architectural decisions, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure and maintainable.
• Lead technical design reviews and provide technical direction to engineers.
• Balance technical debt, engineering improvements and business delivery priorities.
• Champion modern SDLC practices including CI/CD, Git, automated testing and code review.
• Design and develop APIs, microservices, serverless functions and web applications.
• Work with Python and/or Java to develop backend services and integrations.
• Support cloud-based engineering and modernise existing technology capabilities.
• Work with integration patterns including REST, SOAP, event-driven and publish/subscribe architectures.
• Collaborate with data platforms and technologies such as Snowflake.
• Ensure solutions follow appropriate security, data protection and secure development practices.
• Mentor and develop engineers, helping to raise engineering capability across the team.
• Work closely with business stakeholders, architects, compliance teams and other technology leaders.
• Operate within a "build it, run it" engineering culture.

AI & Engineering Innovation

A key part of the role will be helping the organisation develop its AI engineering capability.

You will ideally have experience applying modern AI technologies within software engineering, such as:

• Generative AI and LLM-based applications
• GitHub Copilot, Claude Code or similar tools
• Agentic engineering and AI-powered workflows
• Integrating AI services into production applications
• Developing AI solutions within regulated environments

Experience building AI or agentic solutions within wealth or asset management would be particularly valuable.

What We're Looking For

We are looking for someone with:

• Proven experience as an Engineering Lead, Technical Lead, Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer or similar senior engineering position.
• Strong hands-on software engineering experience.
• Experience with cloud platforms, particularly AWS and/or Azure.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD, DevOps and modern software engineering practices.
• Experience designing APIs, microservices and/or serverless applications.
• Strong architectural and technical decision-making capability.
• Experience mentoring and developing engineers.
• Experience working in wealth management, asset management, investment management, private banking or financial services.
• An understanding of the regulatory and security considerations associated with financial services and client data.

The following would be advantageous, but are not essential:

• Snowflake
• Financial planning or adviser platforms
• Charles River or other investment/portfolio platforms
• Experience with iRess Xplan
• Experience integrating multiple enterprise platforms
• Consumer Duty or other financial services regulatory frameworks
• Experience working directly with AI/GenAI engineering teams
• Experience building internal engineering capability and reducing reliance on external technology partners

If you're a technically strong engineering leader with wealth/asset management experience and a genuine interest in AI, we'd be keen to hear from you.