Software Engineering Team Lead

Socium; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 54,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Socium in Manchester is seeking a Development Team Lead to drive customer-facing software forward. You’ll balance leadership with hands-on writing code, guiding a team of engineers and setting delivery priorities.

You’ll work across C#, .NET and Azure, shaping architecture, APIs and event-driven services. You’ll mentor engineers, uphold high standards and push for reliable, user-friendly software that ships.

Qualifications

• Experience leading software engineers, with examples of how you’ve helped people improve.
• Strong C#/.NET, Azure and API experience, including event-driven or distributed systems.
• Background delivering customer-facing software, with emphasis on usability, performance and reliability.
• Comfort with difficult conversations, providing feedback and challenging unrealistic delivery expectations.
• Hands-on engineering interest with leadership as the primary focus of the role.

Responsibilities

• Lead the team day-to-day, set priorities and remove blockers.
• Coach engineers through code reviews, design discussions and feedback.
• Collaborate with Product to turn customer needs into technical delivery.
• Maintain high engineering standards: TDD, SOLID, maintainable code and robust testing.
• Stay hands-on with development and help solve complex problems.
• Explore how AI can improve development, testing and review with prudent oversight.

Skills

Leadership

C#/.NET

Azure

APIs

Event-driven

Distributed systems

Job description

The customer sees the journey. You’ll lead the engineers making it work.

This FinTech has put technology at the centre of how it does business. The next step needs a Development Team Lead who can get good work out of people, challenge technical decisions and keep customer-facing software moving forward.

Around 70% leadership, 30% hands-on. You’ll have time to develop your engineers, work through delivery priorities and give the team clear direction. You’ll also stay close enough to the code to contribute properly when a difficult change or design decision needs your experience.

The platform is built around C#, .NET and Azure, with APIs, event-driven services and distributed systems behind the customer experience. There’s plenty to get involved in, from improving existing journeys to shaping how new features are built.

What you’ll be doing:

• Leading the team day to day, making priorities clear and dealing with the things slowing delivery down.
• Coaching engineers through code reviews, design discussions and regular feedback.
• Working with Product and the wider business to turn customer needs into sensible technical delivery.
• Keeping engineering standards high: TDD, SOLID principles, maintainable code and testing that gives the team confidence to release.
• Staying hands-on with development and helping the team work through complex problems.
• Exploring where AI can improve development, testing and review, with the judgement to check what it produces.

What we need from you:

• Experience leading software engineers, with examples of how you’ve helped people improve.
• Strong C#/.NET, Azure and API experience, including event-driven or distributed systems.
• A background delivering customer-facing software, where usability, performance and reliability matter.
• Confidence having the difficult conversations, whether that’s feedback for an engineer or challenging an unrealistic delivery expectation.
• Someone who still enjoys engineering and wants leadership to be the bigger part of their job.

What you’ll get:

Up to £90,000, hybrid working in Manchester and ownership of a team whose work customers use every day. There’s room to influence how the team builds, how it develops and what good engineering looks like across the business.