Lead Fullstack Engineer - Java + React

About the Role

We are seeking a Lead, Full Stack Web Application to provide technical leadership and hands on delivery for modern, scalable, and secure web platforms. This role combines architecture ownership, deep engineering expertise, and people leadership.

You will work closely with Product, UX, Data/Analytics, and DevOps/SRE teams to design and deliver high impact applications while mentoring engineers, setting engineering standards, and driving best practices across the full stack.

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Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Lead end to end solution design, architecture, and implementation of web applications and platform services using Java (Spring Boot) and/or Python (Django / Django REST Framework), along with modern front end frameworks (React, Next.js, TypeScript).

• Define and own system boundaries, API contracts, data models, and non functional requirements, including availability, latency, scalability, resilience, and security.

• Establish and enforce engineering standards across the team, including code quality, branching strategies, peer reviews, documentation, observability, and secure coding practices.

Full Stack Engineering Delivery

• Design, build, and maintain high quality backend services covering authentication/authorisation, business logic, data access, and third party integrations.

• Develop responsive, high performance front end applications using React/Next.js, modern UI patterns, state management (Redux), and component driven development.

• Design and integrate RESTful APIs, ensuring proper versioning, backward compatibility, and robust error handling.

Performance, Reliability & Security

• Drive performance optimisation through profiling, caching strategies, database/query optimisation, and efficient rendering techniques.

• Apply secure by design principles, including input validation, dependency hygiene, secrets management, and threat aware development.

• Build and operate production grade observability using logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, and runbooks, improving system reliability and mean time to recovery (MTTR).

DevOps & Cloud Enablement

• Drive CI/CD automation using Git, Jenkins, and containerised workloads with Docker and Kubernetes.

• Support cloud-native deployments on Azure and/or AWS, including environment configuration, release governance, and operational readiness.

Quality Engineering & Accessibility

• Ensure strong automated testing practices, including unit and integration testing, with shift left quality and automated quality gates.

• Champion accessibility and responsive design, ensuring compliance with WCAG 2.1 standards (semantic HTML, ARIA, keyboard navigation, contrast, and screen reader compatibility).

People Leadership & Collaboration

• Mentor and coach engineers through design reviews, code reviews, pairing, and structured growth plans.

• Partner closely with Product, UX, and DevOps/SRE stakeholders to influence roadmaps, plan releases, and manage delivery trade offs.

• Communicate effectively with leadership on delivery progress, risks, technical debt, and investment requirements.

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Required Skills & Technical Proficiency

Backend & Core Engineering

• Java – Expert

• Spring Boot – Expert

• Python – Good to have

• Django / Django REST Framework – Good to have

• RESTful API design – Strong

• SQL & Relational Databases – Proficient

Frontend Engineering

• React.js / Next.js – Advanced

• Redux – Strong

• JavaScript – Expert

• TypeScript – Strong

• HTML / CSS – Expert

DevOps & Platform

• Git & Version Control – Expert

• Docker – Strong

• Kubernetes – Strong

• Jenkins (CI/CD) – Strong

• Azure – Strong

• AWS – Strong

Quality & Standards

• Unit Testing & Debugging – Proficient

• Accessibility (WCAG 2.1) – Proven experience building responsive, accessible applications

Gen-AI / AI for Faster, High-Quality Web Platform Delivery

• AI-assisted coding: accelerate feature delivery via code generation, refactoring, and rapid API/UI scaffolding with human review.

• AI-assisted test creation: generate/expand unit, integration, and UI tests; improve edge-case coverage and reduce regression defects.

• AI-driven quality checks: use AI to support PR reviews (readability, security smells, standards), and strengthen CI quality gates.

• Performance optimisation support: assist with profiling insights, query/rendering bottleneck identification, and caching/latency improvements.

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Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with full stack delivery ownership.

• 2+ years in a technical leadership role (Tech Lead, Lead Engineer, or equivalent), mentoring engineers and driving engineering standards.

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Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with microservices architectures, API governance, schema and versioning strategies, and event driven systems.

• Hands on exposure to security engineering practices, including OWASP principles and dependency management.

• Experience implementing observability and operating production systems at scale.

• Prior experience in payments, financial services, or other highly regulated domains.