Technical Lead

nandos; London Borough of Wandsworth; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Nando's is seeking a Technical Lead for Restaurant Ordering to steer the engineering and delivery of the team that powers order-take systems across the restaurant network.

You will own the team’s delivery, pair with engineers, and set technical direction while ensuring quality, resilience and security. The role blends leadership with hands-on engineering and mentoring across software and ePOS domains.

Qualifications

• Hands-on leadership role owning team delivery and direction.
• Own architecture and technical direction of restaurant technology estate.
• Drive IoT initiatives and automation while reducing manual on-site work.

Responsibilities

• Run the team: stand-ups, planning, backlog management and weekly forum.
• Define and uphold architecture and technical direction for products and estate.
• Champion quality, resilience, security and safe release practices.
• Lead and develop engineers and technicians with clear growth paths.
• Collaborate with Operations, Service Desk and vendors on feasible technical decisions.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Team leadership

Tools

TypeScript

Golang

Ansible

PowerShell

Google Cloud

Terraform

Azure DevOps

BigQuery

Looker

Coralogix

n8n

Job description

Salary up to: Competitive

TECHNICAL LEAD - RESTAURANT ORDERING

OVERALL PURPOSE

Lead the people, engineering and delivery of our Restaurant Ordering team - the team behind the technology every restaurant relies on to take and process an order.

If a restaurant can't take an order, it's on us.

You'll own how the team runs and delivers, set its technical direction and line-manage a mixed team of software and ePOS engineers.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You'll review work, pair with engineers and get stuck into the harder problems, while owning the bar for quality, resilience and security. You'll mostly drive this through the team rather than sitting on the critical path yourself.

You might already lead a team, or you might be a senior engineer with a strong mentoring track record who is ready to step into formal leadership.

Either way, we care that you build a team that is kind, high-performing and safe to be honest in.

THE RESTAURANT ORDERING TEAM

We look after the tills, back-of-house computers, kitchen screens and card payment hardware in every restaurant, as well as the POS menu and pricing data that feeds them.

We manage how NCR's Aloha POS is configured, deployed and upgraded, and own the card payment integration with Stripe across the UK and Ireland.

Our automation keeps hundreds of restaurants running with minimal on-site technical support. This includes standard machine images, packaged software, Ansible to build and upgrade sites remotely, and a self-service portal for our Service Desk.

We also run estate monitoring and alerting, including cold-room temperature sensors that help protect food safety.

We're now growing further into IoT, turning data from connected devices and sensors into monitoring and reporting that helps restaurants run smoothly.

Our stack includes TypeScript, Golang, Ansible and PowerShell, with services on Google Cloud managed through Terraform and Azure DevOps, data in BigQuery and Looker, telemetry in Coralogix, and n8n for workflow automation.

STAKEHOLDERS

• Head of Engineering and Architecture and Head of Product and Delivery in the Operations delivery group
• Product Managers within the Operations group
• Operations, Service Desk, Food Safety and Finance teams
• The Kitchen Management System (NKMS) team
• NCR, Stripe and other third-party vendors

RESPONSIBILITIES

Running the team and delivery

• Own how the team runs, including stand-ups, planning and backlog management.
• Represent the team at the weekly delivery forum.
• Balance live-service support against project delivery, keeping restaurants trading while continuing to move the roadmap forward.
• Spot blockers and delivery risks early, making the calls needed to keep the team moving.

Technical direction and architecture

• Own the architecture and technical direction of our products and restaurant technology estate.
• Understand how our services and platforms connect with NCR, Stripe and the Kitchen Management System.
• Shape the team's move into IoT and drive automation that reduces manual and on-site work.
• Bring considered recommendations on new tools and approaches, moving the team's engineering forward without chasing novelty for its own sake.

Quality, resilience and security

• Own the bar for engineering quality, reliability and security across everything the team ships.
• Champion safe change. A poor release can stop restaurants trading, so staged rollouts, rollback plans and effective change control are essential.
• Lead incident response and run blameless post-mortems, turning incidents into learning and lasting improvements.
• There is no formal on-call rota, but you may occasionally need to respond when significant incidents occur.
• Champion monitoring and observability that help identify problems before they affect restaurant trade.
• Build security in by design, including the security considerations associated with card payments and restaurant technology.
• Maintain strong standards across testing, automation and code quality.

Leading and developing the team

• Line-manage engineers and technicians through regular one-to-ones, clear feedback and development plans.
• Support clear growth paths for both software and ePOS engineering disciplines.
• Coach and mentor people at every level, with particular care for junior team members building their foundations.
• Build a culture that is kind, accountable and safe to be honest in.
• Play a leading role in hiring and in building a strong and diverse team over time.

Working across the business

• Bring engineering into product conversations early, including feasibility discussions, estimates and technical discovery.
• Work closely with Operations, Service Desk, Food Safety and Finance, explaining technical choices and trade-offs clearly.
• Surface risks and dependencies early, particularly across the seams with the Kitchen Management System team.
• Work with key vendors such as NCR and Stripe, helping hold them to their commitments alongside Produc