Tech Lead (AWS / TypeScript / Python)

Hedgehog Lab; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Part time

Job summary

Hedgehog Lab is seeking a Tech Lead to steer a high-volume online marketplace migration to AWS, with TypeScript, JavaScript and Python in scope. Based within 50 miles of Edinburgh/NEWCASTLE/Leeds/Manchester/London, you will drive architectural direction, cloud strategy and delivery in a fast-paced scale-up environment, balancing hands-on coding with leadership and roadmap execution.

The role requires broad engineering breadth across cloud, data, APIs, and frontend, and experience building

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).
• You write TypeScript, JavaScript and Python, and can read and work with PHP (Laravel).
• 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.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering on a high-volume online marketplace, part-way through a major technology transformation.
• Set technical direction across the AWS-based shift while keeping delivery moving.
• Be hands-on across cloud, architecture, data, auth, front-end and APIs while guiding the team.

Skills

Cloud architecture

AWS platforms

TypeScript

JavaScript

Python

Terraform/CDK

Engineering leadership

English communication

Job description

Tech Lead (AWS / TypeScript / Python)

Location and basis

Contract, outside IR35. Starting as soon as possible.

Fully flexible working: home, office, or a mix, your call. We just ask that you're based within 50 miles of Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester or London.

Applications from outside these areas won't be considered.

The engagement

You'll lead engineering on a high-volume online marketplace, part-way through a major, multi-year technology transformation. There's a live migration to AWS and a full version 2 build underway.

The current client-facing platform runs on PHP and Laravel, and the target is a service-based architecture on AWS built in TypeScript, JavaScript and Python. 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)
• You write TypeScript, JavaScript and Python, and can read and work with PHP (Laravel)
• 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
• GenAI or agentic workflows in your engineering practice