Lead Software Engineer

Salary: £36,636 to £38,784 with progression to £46,049 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 23 August 2026

The Role

We are recruiting a Lead Software Engineer to join the NIHR Innovation Observatory (IO), based at Newcastle University. You will play a central role in the technical leadership of IO’s in-house, cloud-based platform for ingesting, structuring, and delivering health innovation data that underpins national horizon scanning.

This role is focused on infrastructure and systems engineering. You will drive forward the robustness, scalability, and maintainability of our core platform, overseeing backend services, cloud deployments, application programming interfaces (APIs), and data pipelines. While you will stay hands-on with the codebase, your key responsibility is to ensure the integrity of the system as a whole, guiding the platform’s evolution across a multi-year roadmap.  

You will work closely with the Programme Lead, Technical Project Manager (TPM) and Lead Software Developer to shape technical direction, uphold engineering standards, and mentor junior members of the technical team. Your work will help ensure OpenScan remains reliable, secure, and ready to support a growing suite of applications and analytical tools used by researchers, analysts, and external stakeholders across the health and care system.

The post is full time, fixed term until 31/03/2031.

For informal enquiries please contact: Dawn Craig, [email protected]

Key Accountabilities

• Lead technical architecture and infrastructure design decisions across the OpenScan platform


• Oversee the backend systems, including data ingestion pipelines, database design, and scalable API development


• Write, review, and maintain production-grade Python code focused on infrastructure, system services, and integration layers


• Provide technical leadership to developers and to junior staff through mentoring, code reviews and setting engineering standards


• Establish and document best practices in backend engineering, continuous delivery/continuous integration (CI/CD), and deployment workflows


• Ensure technical consistency across ingestion, data structuring, API endpoints, and frontend integration


• Contribute technical input into planning and task estimation, ensuring development work is appropriately scoped and prioritised within a Kanban-based delivery approach


• Provide architectural insight and recommendations to inform strategic technical direction


• Guide the integration of AI components and modular applications into the core infrastructure


• Collaborate with the wider team to align future system design with user needs and strategic priorities

This job description identifies the key responsibilities of the post. It is not an exhaustive list of duties and is subject to amendment as necessary, in consultation with the postholder.

The Person

 Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Significant and demonstrable experience designing, building and maintaining production-grade software systems at scale


• Strong proficiency in Python and familiarity with modern backend frameworks


• Proven track record deploying and operating services in a cloud environment (preferably AWS)


• Deep understanding of data architecture, API design, CI/CD workflows, and containerisation (Docker)


• Experience working with MongoDB or similar NoSQL databases in a production context


• Strong version control discipline (GitHub, pull requests, testing, and branching workflows)


• Demonstrated ability to mentor junior technical staff and uphold engineering quality across a team


• Well-developed project management skills, with a good understanding and background in delivering high quality technical projects to time and budget


• Experience shaping technical projects from design to delivery within Agile/Kanban frameworks

(Desirable)

• Experience working in research, public sector, or health data environments


• Familiarity with Atlas Search, Elasticsearch or similar search technologies


• Awareness of frontend integration points (e.g., via API endpoints, templating systems etc.)


• Interest in agentic coding workflows, large language models, and emerging AI developer tools


• Experience with health or policy-related data workflows

Attributes and Behaviour

• Confident communicator with the ability to translate technical challenges and concepts clearly to non-technical colleagues


• Collaborative team player who supports and uplifts others while driving technical quality


• Proactive and resourceful problem-solver who balances long-term vision with day-to-day delivery


• Open to exploring innovative ideas and approaches, showing a keen interest in staying updated with the latest technology trends


• Ability to adhere to and contribute to the ongoing development, of all policies and processes across the Innovation Observatory

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or a related discipline (essential)


• Postgraduate degree in Computer Science or a related discipline (essential) and/or equivalent significant experience in software development and infrastructure delivery will be considered in lieu of formal qualification

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 29647