Life Technology - Technical Lead

M&G; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension scheme up to 18%

Share Save Plan

Share Incentive Plan

38 days annual leave

Flexible time off

Private Healthcare

Critical Illness cover

Life Assurance

Job summary

M&G is seeking a Technical Lead to drive brown-field and green-field technology initiatives. You will define architectures, set engineering standards, and ensure secure, scalable solutions across the IT estate.

You will partner with Product Owners and Delivery Leads, champion observability and cost efficiency, and lead engineers to deliver reliable, compliant platforms in a hybrid work environment. Strong leadership and governance experience are essential.

Qualifications

• Proven track record leading technical design and delivery in complex enterprise or financial services environments.
• Deep experience modernising brown-field legacy platforms into contemporary, API-driven, cloud or microservices architectures.
• Demonstrated experience guiding solutions through formal architecture and engineering governance boards.
• Hands-on background in modern programming languages, integration patterns.
• Experience with Salesforce products and OpenShift is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Act as the accountable technical design authority across an agreed estate domain.
• Drive end-to-end technical designs, embedding non-functional requirements (scalability, security, resilience).
• Define and maintain system architecture and interface documentation.
• Establish, adopt, and enforce reusable engineering patterns and CI/CD practices.
• Manage technical debt, observability, and production support; lead RCA investigations.
• Coach and upskill engineers, participate in technical hiring and onboarding.

Skills

Tech leadership

Architectural governance

API-driven architecture

CI/CD automation

Observability

Stakeholder management

Cloud & microservices

Tools

OpenShift

Azure Integration Services

GitHub

GitHub Actions

Job description

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.Technical LeadAbout the Role & PurposeThe Technical Lead provides brown-field and green-field technical leadership across key areas of the M&G IT estate. In this role, you will be accountable for replacing unsafe, fragile, or costly legacy systems with modern, secure, and supportable solutions. You will define technical architecture patterns, set engineering standards, unblock delivery squads, and ensure smooth, robust operational handovers to run teams.Acting as the key design authority for your domain, you will bridge the gap between business strategy, solution architecture, and day-to-day engineering execution, driving continuous improvement in system reliability, cost efficiency, and developer productivity.Key Responsibilities & AccountabilitiesTechnology Ownership & StrategyAct as the accountable technical design authority across an agreed estate domain.Proactively monitor estate health, focusing on operability, security posture, cost optimisation, and technical debt reduction.Partner with Product Owners, Solution Architects, and Delivery Leads to translate business capabilities into pragmatic technical roadmaps.Solution & Technical DesignDrive end-to-end technical designs from inception through to delivery, ensuring non-functional requirements (scalability, security, resilience, observability) are embedded by default.Prepare, submit, and champion design proposals through M&G engineering and governance forums (e.g., LEAF, TWG, TDA) to achieve first-time approval.Define and maintain proportionate system architecture and interface documentation.Engineering Standards, Patterns & EnablementEstablish, adopt, and enforce reusable engineering patterns, coding standards, CI/CD pipelines, and automation practices across feature squads.Identify and eliminate engineering impediments, improving delivery flow and reducing cycle times across teams.Ensure clear technical boundaries, discouraging single-person dependencies and siloed architectures.Technical Debt, Reliability & Production SupportMaintain an active technical debt backlog, collaborating with delivery management to balance feature delivery with platform modernisation and risk reduction.Champion observability, automated alerting, and defensive design to eliminate recurring incidents.Serve as an escalation authority for complex production defects and lead technical Root Cause Analysis (RCA) investigations to feed preventative measures back into system design.Governance & Risk ManagementEnsure strict adherence to the M&G Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and LEAF delivery controls.Drive threat modelling, data privacy, and regulatory compliance standards across owned systems.People Leadership & CommunityCoach, mentor, and upskill software engineers across squads, fostering a culture of continuous learning, psychological safety, and technical excellence.Participate actively in technical hiring, onboarding, and capability assessment.Contribute to cross-hub engineering guilds and shared technology initiatives.Key Knowledge, Skills & ExperienceEssential Experience:Proven track record leading technical design and engineering delivery in complex enterprise or financial services environments.Deep experience modernising brown-field legacy platforms into contemporary, API-driven, cloud, or microservices architectures.Demonstrated experience guiding solutions through formal architecture and engineering governance boardsStrong hands-on background in modern programming languages, integration patternsPractical experience establishing CI/CD automation, testing frameworks (TDD/BDD), and observability stacksExperience in one or more of - Software development (frontend, backend, mobile), Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Experience Cloud, OpenShift, Cloud Apigee, Sonata, Azure Integration Services, Azure Data Factory, GitHubExcellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to articulate technical risk and trade-offs to non-technical business partners.Desirable Experience:Experience in regulated financial services, wealth, asset management, or life & pensions platforms.Experience with enterprise integration technologies, batch/message transformation frameworks, or core customer platforms (e.g., Salesforce, document rendering pipelines, API gateways).Relevant cloud or architecture certificationsCore Competencies & BehavioursStrategic & Pragmatic: Balances long-term target architecture with short-term commercial and delivery realities.Decisive & Accountable: Comfortable taking ownership of complex technical challenges and driving decisions forward.Collaborative Influencer: Builds credibility through expertise, coaching, and empathy rather than hierarchical authority.Quality & Safety Mindset: Uncompromising on security, stability, resilience, and operational excellence.What we offer:We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life, and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside financial wellbeing and support services to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.Enjoy 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays), with the opportunity to purchase up to five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering, visit Life at M&GAt M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying. If you need any additional support at any stage, please contact us at: [e-mail]