Engineering Lead

Engineering Lead

London / Hybrid 3 days per week

Salary: £85,000 - £100,000

We're building a modern technology platform that applies data engineering and AI to a problem with real global consequence: proving trust and transparency in supply chains. Our work helps protect people from exploitation, gives brands and producers confidence in what they sell, and supports more sustainable choices for the planet.

From a tech perspective, this is greenfield - designing scalable, cloud-native systems and AI-driven products that turn complex data into evidence customers can stand behind. You'll be working on hard, meaningful problems, with real ownership, close collaboration with product and leadership, and the opportunity to shape both the technology and the impact it delivers as we scale.

We're a global team across London, Auckland, Singapore, and Washington D.C.

The Role

This is a blend of strong technical contributor and people leader. You'll make architectural decisions, review code critically, and drive AI-assisted development across the team — while owning day-to-day coordination, line managing engineers, and keeping delivery running smoothly across Auckland and London.

You sit between the individual contributor and management tracks, bringing credibility on both sides. You're the execution layer that keeps the team unblocked, focused, and shipping.

Key Responsibilities

• Own delivery and technical quality — set architecture direction, maintain a healthy shipping cadence, and hold the bar on code quality, security, and reliability

• Organise and sequence the team's work — set milestones, remove blockers, and escalate issues in a timely manner

• Line manage engineers directly — set growth goals, deliver honest feedback, and actively upskill the team on AI-assisted development practices

• Lead the team's AI-driven engineering transformation in practice. You use Claude Code yourself, set the standard, and hold people accountable for adopting these tools meaningfully

• Hire and retain great people — maintain a high bar in interviews and proactively identify retention risks

• Ensure teams own the operations of their systems: on-call, incident management, and playbooks

• Communicate the team's progress, trade-offs, and achievements clearly to product, leadership, and stakeholders

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Hands-on technical depth — you write or review code regularly, lead architecture decisions, and are credible in the room

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in a product environment, delivering reliable software at a sustainable pace

• Direct line management experience — growth conversations, performance management, and the hard conversations that come with it

• Active daily use of AI-assisted development tools (Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalent) with strong opinions on how to use them well

• Comfort with operational ownership — incident management, on-call, observability

• Experience working across distributed teams and time zones

• Experience hiring engineers and calibrating interview feedback

Desirable

• Cloud-native backgrounds (Azure, AWS);

• Experience with Python or React/TypeScript;

• Experience in regulated or data-sensitive environments.

The Recruitment Process

We like to keep our recruitment process smooth and efficient, giving you the opportunity to showcase your skillset in a comfortable environment. The process for this position is a 2-stage interview and short take home task.

Company Benefits

• Paid Leave- 35 days (inclusive of public holidays) + your birthday off

• Volunteering Leave Allowance

• Enhanced Parental Leave

• Life Insurance

• Healthcare Cash Plan

• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

• Pension

• Monthly Wellbeing Allowance

• Breakfast, Snacks, Friday lunch & Barista Coffee Machine in the office

• Learning Portal with over 100,000 assets available to support professional development