Tech Lead (Aws / Typescript)

Hedgehog Lab; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Hedgehog Lab is seeking a Tech Lead (AWS / TypeScript) to steer engineering on a high-volume online marketplace during a major technology transformation. You will guide the move from PHP/Laravel to a service-based architecture in TypeScript and Node on AWS.

This is a hands-on leadership role requiring breadth across cloud, architecture, data, auth, front-end and APIs, with experience decomposing a monolith into services using the strangler pattern and driving AI-enabled workflows.

Qualifications

• Principal-level engineering breadth across cloud, architecture, data, auth, front-end and APIs
• Track record building service-based platforms in AWS, with infrastructure as code (Terraform or CDK)
• Experience decomposing a monolith into services, ideally via the strangler pattern
• You bring AI and agentic workflows into your engineering practice
• You set and hold engineering standards, and communicate decisions with authority
• Comfortable leading delivery in a fast-moving, complex environment
• Comfortable working in English, written and spoken
• Nice to have: Retail or e-commerce background
• Experience leading through a major re-architecture or cloud migration

Skills

AWS

TypeScript

Node.js

Cloud architecture

APIs

Terraform

CDK

Monolith to services

AI workflows

Leadership

English communication

Tools

Terraform

CDK

Job description

Tech Lead (AWS / TypeScript)

Location and basis

Contract, outside IR35. Starting as soon as possible.

While there's no set number of days you're required on site, there will be times when the client needs the team together in person for important meetings, workshops and key moments. When that's the case, we'd expect you to attend.

To make that work, you'll need to be based within 50 miles of one of our offices in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester or London.

The engagement

You'll lead engineering on a high-volume online marketplace, part-way through a major, multi-year technology transformation. A version 2 build is underway, and a move to AWS is under active evaluation as part of that.

The current client-facing platform runs on PHP and Laravel. The direction of travel is a service-based architecture built in TypeScript and Node, with PHP likely retained in places. You'll set technical direction across that shift while keeping delivery moving.

You'll need to be hands-on and broad: someone who understands cloud, architecture, data, auth, front-end and APIs, and has built service-based platforms in AWS before. In an older structure this person would have carried an architect title.

This is a demanding, fast-paced environment. You'll need to be productive quickly without a long ramp.

The platform

This is a genuinely large-scale marketplace. Very few platforms handle a product catalogue or transaction volume at this level.

The roadmap includes agentic AI workflows built into the platform, retail media integrated directly into the marketplace, and infrastructure work targeting cost and performance at high volume.

A lot of this is being attempted at volumes that have rarely been tested in a marketplace before, so the work leans research-led rather than routine.

Who this suits

This is a fast-paced scale-up environment on a complex platform.

You'll do well here if you think strategically rather than transactionally, and you can advocate for technical change and bring people with you.

What we need

The essentials:

Principal-level engineering breadth across cloud, architecture, data, auth, front-end and APIs

Track record building service-based platforms in AWS, with infrastructure as code (Terraform or CDK)

Experience decomposing a monolith into services, ideally via the strangler pattern

You bring AI and agentic workflows into your engineering practice

You set and hold engineering standards, and communicate decisions with authority

Comfortable leading delivery in a fast-moving, complex environment

Comfortable working in English, written and spoken

Nice to have:

Retail or e-commerce background

Experience leading through a major re-architecture or cloud migration