Lead Software Engineer (Hybrid)

8th Light; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 76,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellness package

L&D programme

Learning stipend

Coworking support

New parent leave

Job summary

8th Light in London is seeking a Lead Engineer to drive architecture and delivery for high-impact client engagements. You will balance hands-on development with guiding teams on scalable, production-ready software across languages and frameworks.

The role includes leading ML-enabled projects, collaborating with stakeholders, and mentoring colleagues. London hub follows a hybrid model with one in-office day per week, and the compensation reflects regional benchmarks.

Qualifications

• Experience with platform engineering and internal developer platforms.
• Experience with data processing and analytics tools such as Databricks.
• Experience integrating AI/ML features into products or systems.

Responsibilities

• Make immediate contributions to client projects.
• Lead architecture and software design discussions.
• Collaborate on ML lifecycle systems from data ingestion to deployment and monitoring.
• Mentor teammates and drive backlog and roadmap discussions.

Skills

Platform engineering

Data engineering

Agentic systems

DevSecOps

MLOps

IaC

Tools

Databricks

LangChain

LlamaIndex

CrewAI

AutoGen

n8n

Job description

Lead Engineer

Location

Waterloo, London, England, UK | Hybrid (1 day per week in office)

Who We Are

At 8th Light, we bring life to the best ideas.

Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Chicago, we are a technology solutions consultancy that partners with organisations from early-stage startups to the world's largest companies. We take on hard software challenges and turn them into durable results. We build agentic products, the platforms they run on, and the engineering and design at every layer.

Our commitment to quality means we deliver solutions we’re truly proud of, while our curiosity sparks innovation and breakthrough thinking. 8th Lights thrive in an environment that champions continuous education, fueling our growth through mentorship and hands‑on work. We foster an open, collaborative culture grounded in honesty that builds trust, and believe true success is measured by the outcomes we create for our clients.

If this kind of work and our kind of people energises you, you’ve found the right place.

Who You Are

• Successfully led high-stakes consulting engagements from discovery to production
• Built high-quality, maintainable software collaboratively, incrementally, and through an approach tailored towards the unique needs of the clients you’ve served
• Written production-quality code using a variety of languages and frameworks, including but not limited to: Java, C#/.NET, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Go, Ruby, Scala, R, and SQL
• Leveraged AI-assistive development tools for tasks like scaffolding, refactoring, debugging, test generation, and documentation
• Experience building or integrating AI/ML-powered features into products or systems (e.g., recommendation engines, NLP models, computer vision, predictive analytics)
• Used context-appropriate automated testing to inform software design choices and catch bugs
• Debugged and refactored pre-existing code to incrementally improve it
• Collaborated with teams using Git, MacOS/Linux, and CI/CD
• Remedied architecture-level concerns such as scalability, security, reliability, and performance
• Brought together people from different functions and perspectives in forums that encourage idea sharing, collaboration, and problem solving
• Made thoughtful recommendations and set direction in the face of ambiguity
• Mentored and shared knowledge with colleagues
• Actively sought out and effectively given feedback
• Communicated empathically with stakeholders and colleagues
• Collaboratively led stakeholders to balance technical considerations with product and user needs

What You’ll Do At 8th Light

• Making immediate contributions to projects, rapidly building trust with clients
• Working pragmatically to balance technology choices while delivering high-quality work within deadlines
• Leading architecture and software design discussions
• Collaborating on systems that involve the full ML lifecycle from data ingestion and preprocessing, to model deployment, integration, and performance monitoring
• Generating new potential solutions to challenges (technical and non-technical) in partnership with team members and clients
• Leading or initiating formal feedback conversations with teams and clients via retrospectives
• Clearly articulating and documenting outcomes and driving forward action items
• Contributing to the health of your team and 8th Light’s culture by modeling our Values
• Ensuring your team has a healthy, prioritized, estimated backlog
• Managing high-level project roadmaps as the team lead for large engagements
• Maintaining relationships with client technical leaders
• Regular syncs with the client to provide status updates, and for identifying and evaluating risks and presenting potential solutions
• Identifying, mitigating, and resolving blockers to team progress
• Contributing to 8th Light by serving as a mentor, leading or designing workshops internally or for clients, representing 8th Light in the tech community, or supporting our hiring processes

Strongly Preferred Skills

• Platform engineering: building reusable software foundations, internal developer platforms, and infrastructure that other teams build on
• Data Engineering: including platforms like Databricks for data processing and analytics
• Delivering production agentic systems, including RAG pipelines, vector search, and agentic frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, AutoGen, and n8n
• DevSecOps & DevOps
• MLOps
• Infrastructure as Code

How You’ll Be Supported

• Our wellness package is designed with the Whole YOU in mind and includes:
• A robust L&D programme featuring unlimited access to thousands of books, courses, and expert-led training on the O'Reilly learning platform.
• Annual financial stipend and time allotment for learning & development
• Coworking support for our global team
• 12 weeks of new parent leave available for eligible employees

See our full list of Benefits.

A Note On Compensation

At 8th Light, we are committed to a compensation philosophy that is transparent, fair, and helps us attract and retain top talent in alignment with our company’s strategic growth goals and clients’ needs.

We benchmark our salaries using Geographic Structures to establish competitive pay ranges within the regions where 8th Lights live. Our pay ranges for our Lead Engineer position within London is: £76,023-95,029 GBP.

Reach out to [e-mail] for more relevant information pertaining to your local market.

8th Light Hubs and Geographies

• London Co-working: Employees working from our London hub follow a hybrid model, which includes a minimum of one day per week in our Waterloo Office. This co-working day is designed to encourage collaboration and further strengthen our community.In most cases, our consulting engagements do not require travel.

A Note on Your Privacy

At 8th Light, one of our core values is Honesty that builds trust — and that shapes how we approach hiring. We want you to have a clear picture of who we are, what we’re looking for, and how we handle your information throughout the process.

Before submitting your application, please take a moment to review our Global Candidate Privacy Notice. By applying, you acknowledge that you’ve read it.