Lead Software Engineer

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays; Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A major travel company in the United Kingdom is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to optimize search algorithms and lead a high-performance team. This role requires experience in technical leadership, with a focus on building scalable and robust systems in a fast-paced environment. The ideal candidate will have strong communication skills and a deep understanding of caching mechanisms in e-commerce. Benefits include hybrid working, colleague discounts, and a discretionary profit share scheme.

Benefits

Hybrid working

Colleague discounts on flights and holidays

Discretionary profit share scheme

Qualifications

• Deep technical understanding of search engines in e-commerce.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Technical leadership and mentoring experience.

Responsibilities

• Leading a scrum team and driving its growth.
• Designing and coding efficient search algorithms.
• Making architectural decisions for system performance.
• Implementing CI/CD pipelines for automation.
• Managing and mentoring team members.

Skills

Technical leadership

Strong communication skills

DevSecOps mindset

Experience with caching mechanisms

Tools

C#

.NET Core

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

SQL

Redis

Kafka

Job description

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays are looking for a Lead Software Engineer tojoin our high-performance Search team.This is an excitinghands-onrolewhere you willbe responsible forthe functionality that powers the customer's first interaction with us,working across a breadth of systems and technologies to deliver value and Create Memories for both our business and our customers.

This is a role for a technical leader who loves dataand solving complex problems. Youwon'tjust be building features;you'llbeoptimizingthe engine that drives our business, ensuring that when a customer dreams of a holiday, we find it for them instantly and accurately.

As our Lead Software Engineer , you’ll have access to a wide range of benefits including :

• Hybrid working
• Colleague discounts on Jet2.com flights and Jet2holidays packages
• Access to a generous discretionary profit share scheme

What You'll Be Doing

As our Lead Software Engineer , you will be leading a fast-paced scrum team, made up of a lead engineer, software engineers, automation and manual test engineers, productownersand business analysts. You will also :

• Design and code low-latency search algorithms and data structures in the core search applications, explicitly optimizing for performance to handle high-concurrency traffic without degrading the customer experience.
• Creatinga vision for designing and building robust and scalable systems.
• Makingarchitectural decisions in collaboration with the Architecture Teamfocusing on high-availability, low-latency, and caching strategies to handle massive user load during peak booking periods.
• Supportingteam activitiesthrough the software development lifecyclesuch as planning and estimation.
• Line managingand mentoringteam members tofacilitatetheir growth and progression.
• Championingcurrent and new coding standards and practices.
• Drivinga culture of continuous improvement.
• Improving the developer experience through automation&tooling. You Willdrive the implementation of CI / CD pipelines that ensure safety and quality, removing the need for manual intervention in live environments.
• Implementingobservability and metrics within the search stack. You will ensure the team has visibility into application performance, search accuracy, and error rates tofacilitaterapid debugging and data-driven improvements.

What is the tech stack?

The search platform hasa wide range of technologies including :

• C#, .NET Core, and Web API.
• Event driven architectures (Kafka)
• RESTful Microservices – light-weight efficient, decoupled APIs that scale well.
• Storage technologies like SQL, Redis.
• Cloud technologies (AWS)
• Containerised environments using Kubernetes,Dockerand CI / CD pipelines.
• Automated Testing frameworks with a strong focus on Performance and Load Testing (k6) alongside BDD.

What You'll Have

Our Lead Software Engineer will havedeep technical understanding of Search Engines and caching mechanisms in a high-traffic e-commerce environment, be extremely passionate about technology and havesomepreviouslinemanagement experience. You will also :

• Have strong written and verbal communication skills and be comfortable communicating and building relationships with stakeholders across the business.
• Have priortechnicalleadership and mentoring experience and be willing to enhance your skills in this area to support the growth of software development team.
• Be an excellent role model for the team and colleagues, with an approachable nature and the ability to work as part of a team.
• Be the point of contact for expert guidance and team support.
• A mindset focused onDevSecOpsand Automation. You prefer building tools and guardrails over manual processes and have experience creating observable systems.
• Experience managing Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and understanding the impact of latency on user behaviour.