Overview
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. This is a technical leadership role focused on delivery, technical decision making, and collaboration with engineers and architects on one of Leidos’ key programmes for a central government customer, supporting current and future iterations of a critical national infrastructure.
Responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership for the software team collaborating with architects to contribute to and understand solution approaches, guide implementation, and make 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, translating these into practical implementation approaches.
- Own technical oversight for ensuring the build and deployment pipeline is continuously validated and fit for purpose, working with engineers and supporting roles to ensure 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 with architects and the test team to ensure new and modified software is fully verified prior to promotion.
- Break down the design into workable, reportable tasks for developers to incrementally deliver against in an Agile/Scrum 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.
Essential Skills and Experience
- 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 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 part of delivery
- Familiarity with Agile software development processes and iterative delivery models
- Familiarity with the Atlassian tool suite (e.g., Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo), or equivalent tooling, with 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 and REST web services
- Experience with IBM WebSphere or JBoss application servers
- 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 and Benefits
This will be a customer-facing role; the successful candidate must be able to clearly communicate status, risks, trade-offs, and technical recommendations, and represent the software team in technical discussions and reviews. Clearance Requirements: The successful applicant will be required to hold and maintain UK Security Clearance and additional programme clearances.
We offer meaningful and engaging careers with a collaborative culture, supporting career goals and work-life balance. Our reward scheme includes:
- 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
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