Lead Software Engineer
Location: Farnborough, with flexibility to work from home dependent on business demands
Salary: £61,500 - £78,800
The Role
The Lead Software Engineer will play a critical role in both the sustainment of the current environment and the delivery of new capabilities. The selected individual will develop solutions to complex technical issues and problems that impact multiple areas or disciplines; regularly employ ingenuity and creativity to develop new technical solutions and systems to achieve functional objectives.
As a Software Engineer in Leidos, you will be immersed in one of our key programmes. On behalf of our central government customer, you will have direct impact on the current and future iterations of one of our most important pieces of critical national infrastructure.
This is a technical leadership role. The individual will drive delivery, lead technical decision‑making, collaborate with engineers and architects, and act as the visible technical representative of the software team.
What will I be doing?
- Provide technical leadership for the software team collaborating with architects to contribute to and understand solution approach, guiding implementation, and making sound engineering decisions that balance delivery, quality, and operational risk.
- Provide technical leadership across delivery and engineering practices, ensuring agreed standards and processes are applied consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
- Develop, debug, test, document, and deploy software enhancements aligned with the Software Development Strategy.
- Lead delivery, covering:
- Java-based backend services and APIs that process system business events and workflows, integrating with downstream systems and data services in a secure, highly available environment.
- Drive strong engineering practices across the team
- Ensure adherence to established code review standards
- Ensure defined quality gates are consistently met for the project
- Promote clean, maintainable, well‑documented code
- Guide system design and development by analysing information needs, system flows, data usage, and work processes, and translating these into practical implementation approaches.
- Own technical oversight for ensuring the build and deployment pipeline is continuously validated and fit for purpose for the project, working with engineers and supporting roles to ensure defined CI/CD processes, quality gates, and security scanning requirements are consistently met.
- Determine operational feasibility by evaluating requests, requirements, problem definitions, solution options, and their impact on operational systems.
- Lead engineers and collaborate closely with architects and the test team to ensure new and modified software is fully verified prior to promotion.
- Breakdown the design into workable, and reportable, tasks for developers to incrementally deliver against in a Scrum/Agile fashion.
- Oversee and enable test automation within the scope of the project:
- Ensure engineers deliver unit and integration tests as a standard part of development
- Support and coordinate automation activities, with the test team retaining ownership of overall outcomes
- Support and continuously improve Agile delivery practices, including planning, estimation, backlog refinement, and delivery cadence.
- Ensure effective use of development tooling and processes, including CI/CD pipelines and integrated security scanning.
- Mentor and support other engineers, helping to raise technical capability and consistency across the team.
- Effectively communicate with internal stakeholders, influencing technical decisions through clear, concise, and well‑reasoned input.
What essential skills does Leidos need from me?
- Extensive software engineering experience, including substantial hands‑on delivery using:
- Java (Java 8 and modern Java versions such as 17 and 21)
- API design and implementation
- Proven experience operating as a technical leader, including:
- Leading technical decision‑making
- Guiding and mentoring engineers
- Representing the software team in customer and stakeholder engagements
- Strong understanding of design patterns and a solid, structured approach to software development.
- Strong understanding of git/Bitbucket branching strategies on large projects with moderately sized teams contributing.
- Familiarity with Relational Databases (PostgreSQL), SQL and JDBC.
- Demonstrated experience writing unit and integration tests as a normal part of delivery.
- Familiarity with Agile software development processes and working within iterative delivery models.
- Familiarity with the Atlassian tool suite (e.g. Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo), or equivalent tooling, with a solid understanding of CI/CD concepts, workflows, and practices.
- Experience ensuring compliance with code review standards, quality gates, CI/CD pipelines, and security scanning processes.
Desirable Skills and Experience
- Familiarity with integration and architectural patterns (e.g. adapters, orchestration patterns such as saga).
- Experience with SOAP, REST webservices.
- Experience with IBM Web Application Server or JBoss.
- Familiarity with Unix, Linux or other variants.
- Perl, Python, and/or bash scripting experience.
- Experience with C, C++.
- Strong performance debugging skills.
- Experience contributing to or supporting test automation initiatives (UI and/or API).
Clearance Requirements
The successful applicant will be required to hold and maintain UK Security Clearance and additional programme clearances.
Benefits
- Contributory Pension Scheme
- Private Medical Insurance
- 33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
- Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)
- Flexi-Time Working
Commitment to Diversity
We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture. We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone. If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.
Commitment to Non-Discrimination
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.
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