Job Overview
We're looking for a hands-on Technical Lead who still loves writing code. You'll build features across our React/Next.js front ends and our Django, PHP and Magento back ends. You'll review your team's code and keep the work moving every day.
This is a player-coach role. Expect roughly half your time on hands-on development and half on reviews, planning and leading a team of 8–12 engineers. You'll work closely with Product, QA and DevOps to turn ideas into reliable features that ship on time.
What you'll do
Build features (hands-on)
Design, build and ship features end to end, from React/Next.js screens to Django, PHP or Magento back-end logic and APIs.
Take on the hardest technical problems yourself: performance, integrations, tricky bugs.
Write clean, tested, maintainable code that sets the standard for the team.
Review code and raise quality
Review pull requests every day, giving clear and kind feedback that helps people grow.
Set and maintain coding standards, branching rules and a clear definition of done.
Work with QA to keep production bugs low and fix critical issues fast.
Lead the team and keep work moving
Break features into clear tasks, estimate effort and plan sprints with the Product Manager.
Support daily stand-ups, spot blockers early and clear them.
Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through pairing, reviews and regular one-to-ones.
Keep stakeholders updated on progress, risks and trade-offs in plain language.
Shape the technical direction
Make architecture decisions and write them down so everyone understands why.
Improve CI/CD, monitoring and release processes with DevOps.
Help plan upgrades, reduce technical debt and keep the platform secure.
Must-have skills
React and Next.js: strong, hands-on experience building production apps with hooks, TypeScript, server-side rendering and state management (Redux Toolkit, Zustand or similar).
Back-end (at least one, ideally two):
Django / Python: REST APIs (Django REST Framework), ORM, migrations, background jobs.
PHP / Magento 2: custom modules, plugins and observers, checkout and catalogue customisation, performance tuning.
APIs and databases: designing REST or GraphQL APIs, and working with MySQL or PostgreSQL, query optimisation and caching (Redis).
Code quality: writing and enforcing unit and integration tests, and running thorough, constructive code reviews.
Engineering practices: Git workflows, CI/CD pipelines, Docker, and cloud basics (Azure or AWS).
Security: OWASP basics, safe handling of secrets and user data, and secure authentication.
Leadership: at least 2 years leading or mentoring a team, planning sprints and keeping delivery on track.
Communication: clear written and spoken English, and comfortable working with teams across time zones.
Good to have
AI technologies: hands-on work with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI), RAG pipelines, vector databases (pgvector, Pinecone), or frameworks like LangChain or LlamaIndex.
Building AI features into real products, such as chatbots, smart search, recommendations or content generation.
Using AI coding tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) responsibly, with clear review practices for the team.
E-commerce experience, especially Magento 2 with a headless Next.js front end.
Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, or infrastructure as code (Terraform).
Performance work such as Core Web Vitals, caching layers, and CDNs like Azure Front Door or Cloudflare.
Experience in Agile/Scrum teams using Jira and Confluence.
Experience and education
7–10 years of software development, with at least 3 years as a tech lead or senior engineer guiding others.
A proven record of shipping full-stack features to production.
A degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.