Tribe Lead

Openwork Limited; Swindon; On-site; GBP 81,000 - 99,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15% Bonus on target

Pension scheme matching

Critical illness cover

Income protection

Death in service

27 days holiday + bank holidays + buy

Job summary

The Openwork Partnership is seeking a Tribe Lead to act as the senior technical authority for the tribe, owning the technical roadmap, architecture and quality across all deliveries. You will combine leadership with hands-on engineering to guide design discussions, code reviews and key engineering decisions while mentoring engineers and quality engineers within the team.

You will work with architecture, product and delivery stakeholders to ensure solutions meet standards, while influencing

Qualifications

• Significant hands-on software engineering experience with a track record of technical leadership across complex systems.
• Proven experience leading and line managing engineering teams, including performance and career development.
• Deep expertise in C#, modern .NET and clean architecture, with leadership through code review and design.
• Strong Azure cloud-native engineering experience and scalable integration patterns.
• Extensive experience with CI/CD, observability, logging and distributed tracing.
• Experience applying AI-assisted development tools and governing their use.
• Experience in architecture-led engineering environments within regulated/financial contexts is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Own the tribe’s technical direction, roadmap and architecture decisions.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership, contribute to design, coding, reviews and proofs of concept.
• Take end-to-end ownership of engineering quality, including testing, CI/CD and security.
• Lead and develop engineers, conduct 1:1s, performance reviews and hiring support.
• Translate architectural direction into delivery while aligning with enterprise standards.
• Represent the tribe in architecture reviews and cross-team technical discussions.
• Champion AI-native engineering practices to improve quality and productivity.

Skills

C#

.NET

Azure

CI/CD

Software architecture

Leadership

People management

AI-assisted development

Tools

GitHub Copilot

REST APIs

Job description

As Tribe Lead, you will be the senior technical authority within your tribe, responsible for the quality, technical direction and engineering capability of everything the tribe delivers.

You’ll combine leadership with hands‑on technical expertise, remaining actively involved in design discussions, code reviews and key engineering decisions . You’ll set the technical roadmap , own engineering quality end-to-end and lead, coach and develop the Engineers and Quality Engineers within your team.

As the tribe’s primary technical voice, you’ll work closely with the wider engineering function to ensure solutions meet architectural and engineering standards, while being confident enough to challenge and influence where appropriate . This is a senior, autonomous role where you’ll be trusted to make sound technical decisions , navigate ambiguity and continuously improve both the technology and the engineering capability around you.

THE BENEFITS

• Salary - up to £90,000
• Bonus scheme - on target bonus 15%
• Pension scheme - contribute up to 5% of your salary and Openwork will match you and put in an extra 5%
• Critical illness cover
• Income protection
• Death in service
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays, with the opportunity to buy up to an additional 10 days
• A range of other flexible benefits to include private medical insurance, dental insurance and much more.

What will you need to succeed?

• Own the tribe’s technical direction and roadmap, including architecture decisions, technology choices, technical debt, engineering priorities and technical risk.
• Provide hands‑on technical leadership, contributing to solution design, coding, code reviews, technical spikes and proofs of concept while setting high engineering standards.
• Take end‑to‑end ownership of engineering quality, including automated testing, CI/CD, code review, observability, security and non‑functional requirements.
• Lead, manage and develop engineers, providing effective 1:1s, performance and career development, recruitment support, onboarding and a strong engineering culture.
• Translate architectural direction into effective technical delivery, ensuring solutions align with wider architecture, security and regulatory standards.
• Represent the tribe in architecture reviews, engineering forums and cross‑team technical discussions, collaborating closely with architecture, engineering, product and delivery stakeholders.
• Champion AI‑native engineering practices, using tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code or equivalent to improve development quality, productivity and engineering capability.
• Maintain high‑quality technical documentation, including Architecture Decision Records, API documentation, runbooks and system documentation, while driving continuous improvement across the tribe.

Experience & Technical Expertise

• Significant hands‑on software engineering experience, with a strong track record of technical leadership across complex, production‑grade systems.
• Proven experience leading and line managing engineering teams, including performance management, career development, hiring and building high‑performing teams.
• Deep expertise in C#, modern .NET and clean architecture, with the ability to lead through code review, technical design and engineering best practice.
• Strong Azure cloud‑native engineering experience, ideally including Azure Functions, Service Bus, Key Vault, managed identities and scalable integration patterns.
• Extensive experience with REST APIs, event‑driven architecture, microservices and enterprise integration patterns.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD and automated testing, using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or similar, alongside observability, logging, monitoring and distributed tracing.
• Practical understanding of security‑by‑design, including secrets management, dependency scanning, SAST, access controls and secure development practices.
• Experience applying AI‑assisted development tools, such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code or Cursor, with an understanding of how to govern their effective use.
• Experience working within an architecture‑led engineering environment, contributing to technical decisions while operating within established enterprise standards.
• Experience within financial services or another regulated environment is highly desirable, particularly where GDPR, regulatory compliance, auditability and system reliability are important.
• Experience of technology transformation, including legacy system decommissioning, platform replacement or third‑party SaaS integration, would be advantageous.

Why us?

We're a dynamic, fast‑paced and growing business with huge ambition. This is all made possible by the brilliant people who are part of The Openwork Partnership family. We're investing heavily in our colleagues, continuously striving to give them the platform to develop personally and professionally and reach their full potential.
The Openwork Partnership values and respects individuality and we are committed to building an inclusive culture and environment where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work. We believe that you will bring your best self to work if you are trusted to choose when, where and how you do it. On top of offering a modern workplace with bags of development opportunities, we also offer a highly attractive benefits package to reward you for your hard work. This includes a competitive base salary, an industry‑leading annual bonus, enhanced pension, critical illness cover, income protection and a range of other flexible benefits