Lead Software Engineer

1st Central; Haywards Heath; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading insurance company in the United Kingdom seeks a Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership in an Agile environment. This hybrid role involves mentoring teams while designing and maintaining software solutions. Candidates should possess strong C# .NET skills, SQL knowledge, and experience with cloud technologies like Azure. The company values a strong work culture with a focus on flexibility, ensuring an extraordinary working environment for its employees.

Benefits

Flexible working patterns

Energetic work environment

Supportive company culture

Qualifications

• Experience developing within a C# .NET environment with asynchronous programming skills.
• Significant knowledge of SQL for database management.
• Experience with cloud-based technologies, preferably Azure.
• Strong ability to lead, motivate, and foster collaboration within teams.
• Excellent communication skills are essential.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across the Agile Scrum team.
• Support and create applications & services with both modern and older technologies.
• Design robust and workable solutions closely with Solution Architects.
• Promote high-quality and high-availability software solutions.
• Mentor and coach engineers within cross-functional teams.

Skills

C# .NET Development

SQL

Cloud Architecture & Engineering

Frontend Development

CI/CD Processes

Analytical & Problem-Solving Skills

Leadership & People Management

Communication Skills

Tools

Azure

Entity Framework

Unit Testing

Angular

Job description

Overview

We’re 1st Central, a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And that’s the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too! We’re looking for a Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership across a defined area of our Focus Application estate. In this role, you’ll guide, coach, and mentor engineers within cross‑functional teams, while taking a hands‑on approach to designing, building, and maintaining bespoke software and services that support the business and enable it to grow. This is a flexible hybrid role, with occasional visits to our offices in Salford Quays (Manchester) or Haywards Heath (West Sussex) when required. For those based further afield, we also welcome applications from remote UK‑based workers. We offer excellent flexibility in working patterns and a company‑wide culture you can be proud to be part of.

Benefits

People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here.

Core Responsibilities

• Act as the leading technical voice within an Agile Scrum team across the full development stack.
• Lead in the support of existing, and the creation of new, applications & services written in both older and modern technologies.
• Work closely with Solution Architects, Business Analysts and Product Owners to design modern, robust, workable solutions.
• Enforce the production of high‑quality, high‑usage and high‑availability solutions.
• Ensure software designs follow and enforce the technical guidelines & principles of the overarching enterprise architecture model.
• Actively advise and feed into the architectural team on engineering best practices, new technologies and their future use cases to help drive the emergent architecture.
• Act as the custodian of product level architecture designs and documentation ensuring the team fully documents each product and software process.
• Actively participate in peer groups to push forward new ideas, process improvements and engineering best practices.
• Keep yourself up to date with current technology trends, new ideas and ways of working and have a general passion of all things tech.
• Advise the team in new technologies, development tools and techniques.
• Actively support the software engineering team particularly in coding practices, standards and promoting a DevOps culture, tools, and approach.
• Undertake Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) responsibilities supporting the SRE function in an acting‑up capacity, whilst working as a Lead Product Engineer. This includes demonstrating accountability, fostering positive behaviours, and effectively working within the on‑call process to ensure reliable and efficient operations.
• Guide, coach & mentor other engineers working in cross functional teams and encourage their own learning and development.

Qualifications & Technical & Architectural Understanding

• Good understanding of a service‑based approach to technology, including component, service‑oriented, and event‑driven architectures.
• C# .NET Development: Experience developing within a C# .NET environment, with emphasis on asynchronous programming, dependency injection, Entity Framework, and unit testing.
• Database skills: Significant knowledge and capability working with SQL.
• Cloud Architecture & Engineering: Experience designing and implementing software using cloud‑based technologies, preferably within Azure.
• Leadership & People Management: Strong ability to lead by example, motivate others, and foster a collaborative team environment.
• Analytical & Problem‑Solving Skills: Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills.
• Time Management & Organisation: Good time management and organisational skills.
• CI/CD Processes: Experience in CI/CD processes and standard development tooling.
• Mentoring: Experience leading/mentoring a small squad of engineers.
• Frontend: Excellent HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web development experience particularly in a SPA language (Angular).
• SQL: Strong SQL writing and general database design experience.
• Design Patterns: Working knowledge and understanding of common software design patterns and building software to SOLID principles.
• Unit Testing: Working knowledge and experience of writing Unit Tests.
• Operational/Transactional Enterprise Experience: Experience working within an operational/transactional enterprise business.
• Communication: Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written.

Key Behaviours

• Emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy.
• Self‑motivated and enthusiastic.
• An organised and proactive approach.
• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team.
• A flexible approach and positive attitude.
• Strives to drive improvements that contribute to the success of the business.