Lead Software Engineer

King's College London; London; Hybrid; GBP 53,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading institution in higher education is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to drive development efforts in their digital learning technologies. The role focuses on collaborating with a dedicated team to improve online education, requiring strong technical expertise and experience in web development. Candidates will contribute to innovative educational solutions, ensuring high-quality user experiences, while mentoring junior staff and adhering to best practices in development and project management.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Paid maternity/shared parental leave

Wellbeing programme

Generous pension contribution

Training and development opportunities

Qualifications

• At least 5 years experience in web development or a similar role.
• Experience in a Scrum team and management ability.
• Deep expertise in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, React, and PHP.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Educational Technology Development team to enhance online learning.
• Balance coding standards with UX, scalability, and accessibility.
• Communicate effectively across teams to support online learning experiences.

Skills

Web development

Mentoring

Scrum

Documentation

DevOps principles

Modern web development

Education

Relevant degree/postgraduate qualification

Tools

Git

CI/CD

Moodle

Job description

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About Us

Our mission is to provide transformative, high-quality digital education, so students can learn, wherever they are.

About Us

Our mission is to provide transformative, high-quality digital education, so students can learn, wherever they are.

We collaborate with academics and professional services staff across the university, and with our external partners, to design, develop and deliver a wide range of educational programmes.

Our learners study with us from across the world, choosing when and where they study, working around their schedules.

We are a dynamic team with ambitious growth targets in a priority area of development for King’s. We proudly foster a supportive culture and community which prioritises both individual and collective wellbeing.

Employee support at King’s includes flexible working arrangements, paid maternity/shared parental leave, menopausal support, an active wellbeing programme, training and development opportunities and much more. All of our staff benefit from a generous pension contribution as well.

As part of hybrid working at King’s, all team members can work remotely for part of the week if they wish.

Join us as we open futures and unlock potential.

About The Role

The King’s Digital UXDev/Learning Technology team work together to enhance our virtual learning environment for fully online learning. Providing strong collaborative leadership to the Educational Technology Development (Dev) team, you will be a key part of advising on the best technical approach to fulfil our goals, and the allocation of work for the Dev team in partnership with the UX Manager.

A primary goal of the UXDev/Learning Technology team is to support our in-house modular Design System for online programmes and courses in Moodle. We also provide new technology enhancements to enable more engaging teaching, providing technical expertise to integrate tools as seamlessly and sustainably as possible.

This is an important role for the team as a whole, with a need to balance advanced technical practice with UX, scalability and accessibility requirements. The role goes beyond just being able to write great code and clear tickets, with maintaining high coding standards, ensuring that developments are clearly documented, and aiming to improve our DevOps workflow all being equally important aspects of the role.

While King’s Digital aims to push practice, we are also connected to the central University by our systems and users, so the role requires a strong ability communicate, collaborate, and offer support across teams and departments in the wider University and sector to build the best possible online learning experience for our students.

This is a full time post and will be offered on an indefinite contract.

About You

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential Criteria

• At least 5 years experience – either all in web development or similar role, or combining relevant degree/postgraduate qualification and work experience
• Relevant mentoring and/or vocational or direct management experience, demonstrating management ability in an appropriate professional or specialist area.
• Demonstrable experience of taking an active role in a Scrum team to support the development of a collaborative, adaptive work environment characterised by transparency, trust, and continuous improvement. Ideally with use of digital project management tools, eg Azure DevOps, to prioritise and manage development.
• Proven ability to write clear documentation and communicate technical information to non-technical stakeholders and partners
• Experience of industry best practice DevOps principles, frameworks and tools, such as Git, containerisation and CI/CD.
• Demonstrable deep expertise in modern web development or software engineering, covering tools such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, React, Sass, PHP etc…
• Experience of Moodle/alternative virtual learning environment, CMS, or other comparable systems, and understanding of associated technical architecture, development processes and constraints.
  
  

Desirable criteria

• An interest in online and technology-enhanced education
• Proven commitment to diversity and inclusion
• Understanding of accessibility standards and testing
• Experience in cloud computing (infrastructure as code, virtualisation, container orchestration)
• Experience with data manipulation and/or Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Models.
  
  

Please ensure you write your application referring in order to each of the Essential and Desirable criteria outlined under the ‘Skills and Experience’ sought for this role.

Downloading a Copy Of Our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information on what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘ How we Recruit’ pages.

Please ensure you write your supporting statement referring in order to each of the Essential and Desirable criteria outlined under the ‘Skills and Experience’ sought for this role.

We are able to offer sponsorship for candidates who do not currently possess the right to work in the UK.

Grade and Salary: £53,149 - £62,422 annum, including London Weighting Allowance

Job ID: 118166

Close Date: 07-Jul-2025

Contact Person: Annora Eyt-Dessus

Contact Details: [e-mail]

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Not Applicable

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Higher Education

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