Lead Software Engineer

Were 1st Central a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And thats the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too!

Were looking for a Lead Software Engineer to provide technical leadership across a defined area of our Focus Application this role youll guide coach and mentor engineers within crossfunctional teams while taking a handson approach to designing building and maintaining bespoke software and services that support the business and enable it to grow.

This is a flexible hybrid role with occasional visits to our offices in Salford Quays (Manchester) or Haywards Heath (West Sussex) when required. For those based further afield we also welcome applications from remote UKbased workers. We offer excellent flexibility in working patterns and a companywide culture you can be proud to be part of.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

• Technical & Architectural Understanding: Good understanding of a servicebased approach to technology including component serviceoriented and eventdriven architectures.
• C# .NET Development: Experience developing within a C# .NET environment with emphasis on asynchronous programming dependency injection Entity Framework and unit testing.
• Database Skills: Significant knowledge and capability working with SQL
• Cloud Architecture & Engineering: Experience designing and implementing software using cloud-based technologies preferably within Azure.
• Leadership & People Management: Strong ability to lead by example motivate others and foster a collaborative team environment
• Analytical & ProblemSolving Skills: Strong analytical and problemsolving skills.
• Time Management & Organisation: Good time management and organisational skills.

Whats involved:

• Youll actively work as the leading technical voice within an Agile Scrum team across the full development stack.
• Youll lead in the support of existing and the creation of new applications & services written in both older and modern technologies.
• Youll work closely with Solution Architects Business Analysts and Product Owners to design modern robust workable solutions.
• Youll enforce the production of high-quality high usage and high availability solutions.
• Youll ensure software designs follow and enforce the technical guidelines & principles of the overarching enterprise architecture model.
• Youll actively advise and feed into the architectural team on engineering best practices new technologies and their future use cases to help drive the emergent architecture.
• Youll act as the custodian of product level architecture designs and documentation ensuring the team fully documents each product and software process.
• Youll actively participate in peer groups to push forward new ideas process improvements and engineering best practices.
• Youll keep yourself up to date with current technology trends new ideas and ways of working and have a general passion of all things tech.
• Youll advise the team in new technologies development tools and techniques.
• Youll actively support the software engineering team particularly in coding practices standards and promoting a DevOps culture tools and approach.
• Youll undertake Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) responsibilities supporting the SRE function in an acting-up capacity whilst working as a Lead Product Engineer. This includes demonstrating accountability fostering positive behaviours and effectively working within the on-call process to ensure reliable and efficient operations.
• Youll guide; coach & mentor other engineers working in cross functional teams and encourage their own learning and development.

Experience & knowledge

• Experience developing within a C# .NET environment with particular emphasis on asynchronous programming dependency injection Entity Framework and unit testing.
• Experience in designing and implementing software with cloud-based technologies preferably in Azure.
• Experience in CI/CD processes and standard development tooling.
• Experience leading/mentoring a small squad of engineers.
• Excellent HTML CSS Java Script and web development experience particularly in a SPA language (Angular).
• Strong SQL writing and general database designs experience.
• Working knowledge and understanding of common software design patterns.
• Working knowledge and experience of building software to SOLID principles.
• Working knowledge and experience of writing Unit Tests.
• Experience of working within an operational/transactional enterprise business.

Skills

• Excellent communication skills both verbal and written.
• Good time management and organisational skills.
• Reasonable leadership and people management skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Good understanding of a service-based approach to technology including component service oriented and event driven architectures.

Behaviours

• Emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy.
• Self-motivated and enthusiastic.
• An organised and proactive approach.
• Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team.
• A flexible approach and positive attitude.
• Strives to drive improvements that contribute to the success of the business.

Join us and step into a role where your technical vision cloud expertise and leadership can truly make a difference.

What can we do for you

People first. Always. Were passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so thats what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic inspirational supportive. To get a taste of the advantages youll enjoy take a look at all our perks in full here.

Intrigued Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what were offering so feel free to get in touch.