Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer | Node.js | Education Software | up to £80,000 + shares

Our client is an EdTech/SaaS company building an advanced digital learning platform focused on immersive and interactive educational experiences. As the platform continues to evolve across the UK and US, they are looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to play a key role in shaping backend systems, architecture, and engineering standards within a small, collaborative engineering team.

The Role:
This is a hands-on leadership role for an experienced engineer with strong expertise in Node.js.
You’ll work closely with mobile, Unity, and senior engineers, partnering with the Technical Product Lead to ensure predictable delivery and strong engineering discipline. This role is not people‑management focused, but requires clear technical leadership, mentoring, and influence across engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead backend engineering across the platform, ensuring performance, security, and maintainability
• Act as the senior hands-on engineer for Node.js backend development
• Collaborate closely with Unity, mobile, and client-side teams to ensure backend services reliably support immersive, content‑rich experiences
• Own API design and server-side architecture, building scalable, well-documented services
• Drive backend delivery processes, workflow optimisation, CI/CD, and deployment best practices
• Develop integrations with external services, including AI-driven functionality
• Own backend cloud environments and data flows, proactively identifying performance, scalability, and reliability risks
• Support onboarding of future engineers and contribute to long-term backend technical strategy

About You

• Strong commercial experience as a developer, focusing on Node.js development 
• Confident designing backend architectures and APIs for cloud-native platforms
• Interest or experience integrating AI-powered or data-driven services
• Comfortable communicating technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Hands-on, proactive, and pragmatic, with high standards for code quality and delivery

Salary & Benefits

• £70,000 – £80,000 + shares (£100k–£112k total package)
• Hybrid working – 3 days onsite in Manchester, 2 days from home
• 23 days holiday + bank holidays (negotiable)