Lead Software Engineer

Location: Farnborough, with flexibility to work from home dependent on business demands

Salary: £61,500 - £78,800

The Role:

The Lead Software Engineer will play a critical role in both the sustainment of the current environment and the delivery of new capabilities. The selected individual will develop solutions to complex technical issues and problems that impact multiple areas or disciplines; regularly employ ingenuity and creativity to develop new technical solutions and systems to achieve functional objectives.

As a Software Engineer in Leidos, you will be immersed in one of our key programmes. On behalf of our central government customer, you will have direct impact on the current and future iterations of one of our most important pieces of critical national infrastructure.

This is a technical leadership role. The individual will drive delivery, lead technical decision‑making, collaborate with engineers and architects, and act as the visible technical representative of the software team.

What will I be doing?

• Provide technical leadership for the software team collaborating with architects to contribute to and understand solution approach, guiding implementation, and making sound engineering decisions that balance delivery, quality, and operational risk.
• Provide technical leadership across delivery and engineering practices, ensuring agreed standards and processes are applied consistently throughout the project lifecycle.
• Develop, debug, test, document, and deploy software enhancements aligned with the Software Development Strategy.
• Lead delivery, covering:
  • Java-based backend services and APIs that process system business events and workflows, integrating with downstream systems and data services in a secure, highly available environment.
  • Drive strong engineering practices across the team
  • Ensure adherence to established code review standards
  • Ensure defined quality gates are consistently met for the project
  • Promote clean, maintainable, well‑documented code
• Guide system design and development by analysing information needs, system flows, data usage, and work processes, and translating these into practical implementation approaches.
• Own technical oversight for ensuring the build and deployment pipeline is continuously validated and fit for purpose for the project, working with engineers and supporting roles to ensure defined CI/CD processes, quality gates, and security scanning requirements are consistently met.
• Determine operational feasibility by evaluating requests, requirements, problem definitions, solution options, and their impact on operational systems.
• Lead engineers and collaborate closely with architects and the test team to ensure new and modified software is fully verified prior to promotion.
• Breakdown the design into workable, and reportable, tasks for developers to incrementally deliver against in a Scrum/Agile fashion.
• Oversee and enable test automation within the scope of the project:
  • Ensure engineers deliver unit and integration tests as a standard part of development
  • Support and coordinate automation activities, with the test team retaining ownership of overall outcomes
• Support and continuously improve Agile delivery practices, including planning, estimation, backlog refinement, and delivery cadence.
• Ensure effective use of development tooling and processes, including CI/CD pipelines and integrated security scanning.
• Mentor and support other engineers, helping to raise technical capability and consistency across the team.
• Effectively communicate with internal stakeholders,influencing technical decisions through clear, concise, and well‑reasoned input.

What essential skills does Leidos need from me?

• Extensive software engineering experience, including substantial hands‑on delivery using:
  • Java (Java 8 and modern Java versions such as 17 and 21)
  • API design and implementation
• Proven experience operating as a technical leader, including:
  • Leading technical decision‑making
  • Guiding and mentoring engineers
  • Representing the software team in customer and stakeholder engagements
• Strong understanding of design patterns and a solid, structured approach to software development.
• Strong understanding of git/Bitbucket branching strategies on large projects with moderately sized teams contributing
• Familiarity with Relational Databases (PostgresSQL), SQL and JDBC
• Demonstrated experience writing unit and integration tests as a normal part of delivery.
• Familiarity with Agile software development processes and working within iterative delivery models.
• Familiarity with the Atlassian tool suite (e.g. Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo), or equivalent tooling, with a solid understanding of CI/CD concepts, workflows, and practices.
• Experience ensuring compliance with code review standards, quality gates, CI/CD pipelines, and security scanning processes.

Desirable Skills and Experience:

• Familiarity with integration and architectural patterns (e.g. adapters, orchestration patterns such as saga).
• Experience with SOAP, REST webservices
• Experience with IBM Web Application Server or JBoss
• Familiarity with Unix, Linux or other variants
• Perl, Python, and/or bash scripting experience.
• Experience with C, C++
• Strong performance debugging skills
• Experience contributing to or supporting test automation initiatives (UI and/or API).

This will be a customer‑facing role therefore the successful individual must be able to clearly communicate status, risks, trade‑offs, and technical recommendations, and represent the software team in technical discussions and reviews.

Clearance Requirements: The successful applicant will be required to hold and maintain UK Security Clearance and additional programme clearances.

What we do for you:
At Leidos we are PASSIONATE about customer success, UNITED as a team and INSPIRED to make a difference. We offer meaningful and engaging careers, a collaborative culture, and support for your career goals, all while nurturing a healthy work-life balance.

We provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent. Our reward scheme includes:
•    Contributory Pension Scheme
•    Private Medical Insurance
•    33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
•    Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)

•    Flexi-Time Working

Commitment to Diversity:

We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture.  We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone.  If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.

Who We Are:

Leidos UK & EUROPE – we work to make the world safer, healthier, and more efficient through technology, engineering and science.

Leidos is a growing company delivering innovative technology and solutions focused on safeguarding critical capabilities and transformation in frontline services, our work in the United Kingdom includes addressing some of the most complex problems in defence, healthcare, government, safety and security, and transportation.

What Makes Us Different:

Purpose: you can use your passion and abilities at Leidos to keep the people you care about safe. We are at the forefront of machine learning, AI, cyber security and solutions. Using your skills in the technology frontline by helping to build a safer world.  You can inspire change.

Collaboration: having flexibility to do your job is one of our core benefits, enabling you to become part of our extraordinary team.  We have been empowering our people to work flexibly for years.  Whether you work from home, the office or on customer sites, we will give you the digital tools and the flexibility to work smarter and align your needs and ours.          

People: Leidos empowers people from every background to be themselves and gives you the tools to learn new skills by enabling growth whilst developing. We believe that extraordinary people need opportunities to grow, to be inspired and to inspire others. At Leidos, we invest in technical academies, career rotations and a career development plans that enhance your future.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.