Lead Software Engineer

The Open University UK; Milton Keynes; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 67,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days annual leave

Hybrid working

USS pension scheme

Staff fee waivers for OU study

Blue Light Card discounts

Private healthcare discounts

Transport benefits (EV, cycle, rail)

Job summary

The Open University is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to shape and operate digital products and platforms that support students and staff. You will work closely with Product and Delivery Managers in a multidisciplinary team, reporting to the Group Engineering Lead on technical direction and standards.

The role covers architecture, software, infrastructure, pipelines, testing, security and reliability, with coaching and possible line-management responsibilities.

Qualifications

• End-to-end technical ownership of a production digital product or service.
• Accountability for architecture, software engineering, cloud infrastructure and CI/CD.
• Hands-on engineering to design solutions, write and review maintainable code.
• Incident diagnosis, root-cause improvement and reliability work.
• Lead delivery in a multidisciplinary team with evidence-based trade-offs.
• Contribute to engineering standards and reusable patterns.

Responsibilities

• Own the product’s end-to-end technical lifecycle, from discovery to retirement.
• Set technical vision across architecture, software, infra, CI/CD and security.
• Remain hands-on; design, build, test, review, deploy and operate high-quality software.
• Explain technical feasibility and dependencies with the Product Manager.
• Balance outcomes with technical debt, cost, delivery speed and sustainability.
• Lead incidents and drive improvements using operational data and feedback.
• Coach engineers, foster shared ownership and prevent bottlenecks.
• Contribute to engineering standards and patterns beyond a single team.

Skills

C# & .NET

Cloud infrastructure

RESTful APIs

React/Next.js

CI/CD

AI-assisted development

Tools

Microsoft Azure

Azure DevOps

GitHub

Playwright

Docker / containers

Job description

Job Location: Milton Keynes, Remote/Hybrid

Salary: £59,966 to £67,468 + 20% Market Related Pay Allowance until 21 October 2028 initially

Closing Date: 11 November 2026

Weekly Working Hours: 37

Contract Type: Permanent

Fixed Term Contract: End Date: Not Applicable

Welsh Language: Not Applicable

Change your career, change lives

At The Open University, we believe that where you start in life should not limit where you can go. Established over 50 years ago, we are committed to making high-quality education accessible to anyone, anywhere. Through our unique approach to distance and online learning, we have transformed millions of lives by opening opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach.

The Open University is the UK's largest university, a world leader in flexible part‑time education, combining a mission to widen access to higher education with research excellence, transforming lives through education.

Our mission is to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. As one of the world’s leading providers of flexible learning, we continue to innovate and evolve, helping students develop the skills, knowledge and confidence to succeed throughout their lives and careers. Find out more about us and our mission by watching this short video (you will be taken to YouTube by clicking this link).

About Digital Services

Digital Services is at the heart of delivering life-changing learning experiences that enrich society. We combine trusted design, data expertise and modern technology to create, run and continuously improve the digital services that support students, staff and the wider University community.

We work in multidisciplinary teams to solve meaningful problems, deliver value iteratively and ensure that our services are secure, reliable and accessible. Whether supporting student journeys, enabling teaching and learning, or providing the technology foundations that power the University, our work has a direct impact on thousands of people every day.

Our objectives are to:

• Enhance the student and staff experience through simple, evidence-based solutions.
• Deliver value iteratively, securely and at pace, balancing innovation, quality and operational excellence.
• Foster a vibrant and supportive workplace that embraces continuous learning, growth and collaboration, empowering everyone to succeed.

About the Role

As a Lead Software Engineer (known internally as a Lead Engineer), you will play a key role in shaping and operating the digital products and platforms that enable the University’s mission, helping teams deliver sustainable, resilient and valuable services for students and staff.

You will work in close partnership with the Product Manager and Delivery Manager within a multidisciplinary product team. You will also report to and align with the Group Engineering Lead on engineering standards, capability and technical direction. TheLead Software Engineer is the technical co-owner of one or more digital products or services. Working with the Product Manager, the role helps establish direction, understand constraints, make informed investment choices and ensure that the product delivers sustainable value. The successful candidate will be accountable for technical direction, quality, health and sustainability throughout the full lifecycle.

The role is deliberately broader than application development alone. Accountability spans the technical system needed to deliver and operate the product effectively, including architecture, software, infrastructure, environments, configuration, delivery pipelines, automated testing, security, observability, resilience and operational support. The successful candidate will provides technical coaching and mentoring, alongside formal line-management responsibility.

For more information about the role, a fully detailed role profile can be found here .

Key Responsibilities

• Own the product’s end-to-end technical lifecycle, from discovery and architecture through build, deployment, live operation, evolution and retirement.
• Set technical vision and direction across architecture, software, infrastructure, environments, CI/CD, automated testing, security, observability, resilience and support.
• Remain hands‑on; design, build, test, review, deploy and operate high-quality software, while tackling complex technical and production problems.
• Work with the Product Manager to explain technical feasibility, estimate work, expose dependencies and ensure non‑functional requirements are addressed.
• Balance user and organisational outcomes with technical risk, cost, delivery speed, technical debt and long‑term sustainability.
• Build operability, maintainability, accessibility, security, resilience and supportability into solutions from the outset.
• Lead the technical response to incidents, use evidence and operational insights to address root causes, and improve reliability.
• Create shared ownership by coaching engineers, enabling sound decisions and avoiding technical bottlenecks or single points of failure.
• Contribute to engineering standards, patterns, technical strategy and the wider engineering community of practice.
• Identify, evaluate and introduce emerging practices and tools, including the responsible use of AI to improve engineering outcomes.

For more information about the responsibilities of this role, a fully detailed role profile can be found here .

About You

These are the core requirements. We are looking for evidence that you have already operated with comparable technical scope and accountability.

• End-to-end technical ownership of a production digital product or service through discovery, delivery and live operation.
• Accountability for technical outcomes across architecture, software engineering, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, automated testing, security, observability and resilience.
• Hands‑on engineering experience sufficient to design solutions, write and review maintainable code, and influence implementation quality.
• Operating and supporting production services, including incident diagnosis, root‑cause improvement and reliability work.
• Creating automated testing and safe, repeatable deployment pipelines as integral parts of software delivery.
• Making pragmatic architectural decisions and managing technical debt, vulnerabilities, obsolescence and lifecycle risk.
• Leading technical delivery in a multidisciplinary product team and working with Product to make evidence‑based trade‑offs.
• Coaching engineers and building collective ownership without becoming the team’s decision‑making bottleneck.
• Leading modernisation or migration of established production services.
• Contributing to engineering communities of practice, standards or reusable patterns beyond a single team.
• Using operational data, user feedback and delivery measures to drive continuous improvement.
• Evaluating and introducing new engineering tools or practices, including responsible AI‑assisted development.

Depending on the team, you may work with: C# and .NET; Microsoft Azure; RESTful APIs and distributed systems; React and Next.js; headless CMS platforms; Terraform and Infrastructure as Code; GitHub and Azure DevOps; CI/CD; Playwright and other automated testing frameworks; containers and cloud‑native technologies; monitoring, observability, automated security and quality tooling; and AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot.

You do not need experience of every technology listed. Strong engineering fundamentals, learning agility and evidence of applying modern engineering practices matter more than a precise technology match.

How you will work:

• Lead through influence: Create clarity, facilitate productive technical discussion and help others succeed.
• Be pragmatic: Recognise that there is rarely a perfect solution and make trade‑offs visible.
• Stay outcome‑oriented: Connect technical choices to the user, organisational or service outcome.
• Value continuous delivery: Prefer small increments, automation and fast feedback over large releases and hand‑offs.
• Build quality in: Treat testing, security, accessibility, performance and reliability as continuous engineering concerns.
• Enable autonomy: Create conditions in which engineers can make sound decisions without centralising ownership.
• Work with ambiguity: Help discover what should be built rather than waiting for a complete specification.
• Keep learning: Explore new approaches and challenge established practice when evidence suggests a better outcome.

What's in it for you?

At The Open University, we offer a range of benefits to recognise and reward great work, alongside policies and flexible working that contribute towards a great work life balance including:

• 33 days annual leave, on top of bank holidays and a three‑day Christmas closure period.
• Access to the USS pension scheme for UK higher education with generous employer contributions of 14.5%.
• Staff Fee Waivers for OU study, up to and including postgraduate Masters degree level study.
• Hybrid working, with limited requirement to attend the office in‑person, with agile working and family friendly policies including Maternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave.
• Various discounts, including Blue Light Card, and development opportunities.
• Health and wellbeing support, including access to discounted private healthcare and a cash plan to claim back on everyday health needs, like dental and optical care.
• Transport benefits including Electric Vehicle Scheme, Cycle to Work Scheme & Season ticket loans for travel by rail, bus or tram.

Get all the details of what benefits we offer by visiting our Staff Benefits page (clicking this link will open a new window).

We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a job share, part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.

It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We’d expect this to be on average once per month.

Next steps in the Recruitment process

We expect there to be a two stage interview process for this role and anticipate that first stage interviews for this role will be taking place online via Microsoft Teams during early to mid November 2026 and will involve a discussion about System Design. Candidates who successfully progress to a second stage interview will then be invited to attend a further online interview via Microsoft Teams which will include a presentation.

Early closing date notification

While most roles will remain open until the advertised closing date, applications may be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In some cases, vacancies may close earlier if a sufficient number of suitable applications have been received and equality impacts have been appropriately considered. All roles will remain advertised for a minimum of one week before any early closure is implemented. As we have multiple role to fill on this occasion, we may also need to extend the advert for longer on a rolling basis until all roles have been filled.

If you have started an application or were in the process of applying when the advert closed, we encourage you to get in touch. We are committed to understanding individual circumstances and can offer further support where needed, including reasonable adjustments for applicants with protected characteristics.

The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential. We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength.We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.