Web Engineering Lead

Unite Foundation; West of England; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus potential

25 days holiday

Pension scheme

Healthcare & wellbeing benefits

Job summary

Unite Students seeks a Web Engineering Lead to own the technical direction, quality, and live service health of the Web Domain, including the customer website, microservices and content platform. You will shape architecture, enforce standards, and govern releases across internal and partner squads.

You will drive the platform rebuild toward a headless, multi-brand architecture, align cost and security, and champion observability, incident management, and secure coding practices to deliver

Qualifications

• Designed and delivered large-scale web platforms in an enterprise environment.
• Led significant re-architecture, microservice/micro-frontend evolution or decoupling of monoliths.
• Set and upheld engineering standards across multiple teams with measurable quality.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction and roadmap of the Web Domain, representing it in enterprise settings.
• Lead the engineering of the next-generation trading platform and ensure quality gates and security standards are met.
• Maintain a single Definition of Done across internal and partner squads and uphold release governance.

Skills

Domain leadership

Architecture

DevSecOps

Observability

Incident management

Security

Communication

Governance

Tools

Next.js

Contentful

Algolia

AWS

CI/CD

Job description

The Web Engineering Lead owns the technical direction, engineering quality and day-to-day health of the Web Technical Domain, the customer website and its suite of microservices, the platform through which students discover, book and pay for their home with us. It is one of the most commercially important technology estates at Unite Students, and this role is accountable for it end to end: from architecture and standards through to cost, security and live service.

This is a technical leadership role. You will lead through standards, patterns and influence rather than hierarchy: guiding multiple internal and partner squads who contribute to a shared, growing codebase, and holding all of them to a single definition of quality. Managing our engineering partners is central to the role.

You will join at a significant moment. Following an independent assessment of the web estate, we have a funded, Board-backed programme to rebuild our trading platform as a headless, multi-brand architecture with enforced engineering standards, real release governance and a newly established Design Authority behind it. You will be a visible leader in that change: shaping the target architecture, raising the quality bar, and making sure the platform holds through the trading windows that matter most. If you are motivated by making engineering measurably better, this is a rare amount of room to do it.

You will own the Web Domain, which includes:

• The customer website (Next.js) and its associated microservices
• The content platform (Contentful), Search (Algolia) and the integration of web journeys with our commerce, booking and account APIs.
• The domain`s own AWS account, including its cost, security posture and operational health
• The CI/CD pipelines, quality gates and release process for the domain

The domain consumes booking, pricing and account services through APIs; the platforms behind those APIs are owned by peer domains (Salesforce, Integrations), and you will work closely with their leads. This role covers the Web Domain only.

What You`ll Be Doing

• Domain leadership. Own the technical direction and roadmap of the Web Domain and represent it in enterprise settings.
• The platform rebuild. Lead the engineering of our next-generation trading platform: progressively decoupling marketing from booking and rebuilding the web estate and architecture on which each brand trades as a shopfront on a shared engine and onboarding acquired brands is configuration, not a new stack.
• Engineering quality. Own the quality and process behind everything the domain ships. Define and maintain quality and security gates, set the standards, principals and a DORA baseline you measurably improve.
• One standard, every squad. Maintain a single Definition of Done that applies equally to internal and partner squads, with evidence at release gates. Hold partner-delivered work to it, including the authority to decline work that does not meet it and to shape quality requirements in partner statements of work.
• A coherent codebase. Lead the web engineering practice: author the patterns, reference implementations and reusable components that keep a growing, multi-team codebase consistent and supportable, and coach squads in using them.
• Live service. Own the reliability of the website as a trading channel: service level objectives, observability, incident and problem management with a learning-focused, blameless culture.
• The AWS account. Own the domain`s AWS account and running services within an agreed budget envelope.

What We`re Looking for in You

You do not need every item below, if you have a strong combination of these, we would like to hear from you.

• You have designed and delivered large-scale, public-facing web platforms in an enterprise environment, and you have led a significant re-architecture, for example decoupling a monolith or moving to a microservice / micro-frontend architecture.
• You have set and upheld engineering standards across several teams, and can describe how you made quality measurable. Code Review processes, DevSecOps Practices and Gated release to production.
• You have managed third-party engineering partners to a defined quality standard, and can give examples of holding the line when delivered work fell short.
• You have owned live services: observability, incident and problem management, and change control on systems where downtime costs money.
• You build security in. Least privilege, secure coding, and working openly with security teams on risk
• You use AI-assisted engineering tools in your own work and have a considered view on where they help, where they do not, and what controls they need
• You communicate clearly with technical and non-technical audiences, and can gain support for engineering decisions in governance settings - architecture boards, risk forums, senior stakeholders

What You`ll Get in Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company`s success
• 25 days` paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service
• A generous pension scheme - employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is the UK`s leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 23 leading university towns and cities, with 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion.

We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students.

Employees, students and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with a passion for creating room for everyone, doing what`s right, keeping US safe, and raising the bar. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.