Lead Software Engineer (Must be based in UK)

Entrepreneur First; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A modern tech firm in the UK is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to manage a cross-functional team delivering an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform. The ideal candidate has over 6 years of experience in software engineering, expertise in Python, and a proven track record in leading teams. This role requires a London-based office presence 2–3 days per week and offers competitive compensation and various employee benefits.

Benefits

Participation in employee share options plan

Flexible working from home policy

Ability to work from outside the UK for up to 6 months

24/7 confidential support through TELUS Health EAP

Annual learning and development allowance

One-off WFH allowance

Company-funded fertility and family-forming programmes

Private healthcare and dental cover

Gym discounts and mental health programs

Qualifications

• 6+ years as a professional Software Engineer with production feature delivery experience.
• Hands-on experience designing, deploying, and maintaining RESTful APIs.
• Experience leading technically, including scoping, architecture, and delivery.

Responsibilities

• Manage and lead a cross-functional Software Engineer team.
• Lead the software architecture of the conversational AI platform.
• Work with PMs to define the roadmap of the studio product.

Skills

Expertise in Python

Experience with React

Leadership of 3+ engineers

Designing RESTful APIs

Cloud services (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Understanding of algorithms and data structures

Job description

Overview

Lead Software Engineer (must be based in UK) – United Kingdom

PolyAI automates customer service through lifelike voice assistants that let customers lead a conversation. Our voice assistants enable businesses to deliver outstanding customer service that rivals human agents. Our customers, which include world-leading brands, are expanding how they use our platform and integrating PolyAI into daily customer service workflows.

We’re looking for talented Lead Software Engineers to join one of three high-impact teams: Runtime, Data, and Product Engineering. All three teams share high engineering standards and solve challenging technical problems at scale, with distinct missions and areas of focus.

Team focus

• Runtime: own the global infrastructure powering real-time voice interactions. You’ll work at the core of the agentic process—streaming audio, transcribing speech, using LLMs and acting on their output, and synthesising natural voice. You’ll design and optimise systems across VoIP and WebRTC to deliver low-latency, secure, and reliable conversations. Your work directly shapes the user experience of every call, driving down response times, improving comprehension, and ensuring we meet strict SLAs for performance and security.
• Data: lead the design and development of features that power insight generation, reporting, and the data-driven backbone of our no-code platform for building voice assistants.
• Product Engineering: shape our cutting-edge low-code platform, working end-to-end from design to implementation to create features that enable a simple user experience for interacting with complex AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Manage and lead a cross-functional Software Engineer team to deliver an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform.
• Lead the software architecture of our multitenant conversational AI platform, ensuring robustness and scalability.
• Work with PMs to define the roadmap of our studio product and ensure business goals are met.
• Advocate and implement appropriate software engineering standards across the tech team.
• Manage career development of reports.
• London-based office presence required (Paddington) 2–3 days per week.

Requirements

• 6+ years as a professional Software Engineer with production feature delivery experience.
• Expertise in Python; experience with React is a plus.
• Experience leading a team of 3+ engineers.
• Experience leading technically, including scoping, architecture, and delivery.
• Hands-on experience designing, deploying, and maintaining RESTful APIs.
• Experience with one or more cloud services: AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Understanding of algorithms, data structures, system design, and complexity analysis.

Application process and notes

We currently have multiple engineering roles open across different teams. Please apply to the one role that best matches your skills and experience. Our Talent team will review applications against all open positions and will consider you for other roles if appropriate. A centralized hiring process lets us learn your skills and preferences and match you with the most impactful team.

We offer competitive compensation based on experience, expertise, and responsibility, plus equity. The listed expectations reflect what we're hiring for, so please review the job description carefully.

Perks and benefits include:

• Participation in the company’s employee share options plan
• Flexible working from home policy
• Work from outside the UK for up to 6 months each year
• TELUS Health EAP 24/7 for confidential support
• Annual learning and development allowance
• One-off WFH allowance to improve comfort and focus
• Company-funded fertility and family-forming programmes
• Private healthcare and dental cover, gym discounts, and mental health programs

PolyAI is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to an inclusive environment for all employees. Employment decisions are based on business needs without regard to ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, neurodiversity status, or disability status.

Privacy notice for our recruitment process is available here. The document provides information on how we handle your personal data during the recruitment journey.

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