Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer (Ref: 197597) Contact – Samuel.Robinson@forsythbarnes.com We are currently recruiting for a Lead Software Engineer to join a leading organisation within the sports data industry. This is an exciting opportunity to play a key role in developing and operating scalable software, data and cloud platforms supporting sports products and services. You'll drive technical delivery, platform reliability and engineering best practice, working closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, UX and DevOps teams. The role will suit an experienced engineer with strong Python, AWS and data engineering experience who is passionate about building high-performing technology solutions within a fast-paced sporting environment. Location: London (Hybrid – 3 days a week) What you'll be doing: Leading the design, development and operation of scalable data platforms, AWS infrastructure and cloud-based productsWorking with Product teams to translate business requirements into scalable data, cloud and infrastructure solutionsDeveloping secure and reliable strategies for ingesting, processing, storing and delivering data from multiple sourcesCollaborating across Engineering, Data Science, UX and DevOps on cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, deployment pipelines and release managementDriving technical delivery, platform reliability, operational resilience and business continuity, including disaster recovery readinessContributing to new platform capabilities with a focus on automation, data quality and operational excellenceLeading and mentoring engineers while promoting strong technical and engineering practicesSupporting critical sporting events, ensuring system availability, performance and effective incident response What they're looking for: 5+ years' commercial experience building scalable data pipelines, data platforms and cloud-native solutions using Python, SQL and AWSStrong experience with ETL/ELT, data ingestion, large-scale data processing, data modelling and data qualityHands-on AWS experience across services including EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, VPC, IAM and CloudWatchExperience designing and managing secure, scalable and highly available cloud infrastructureExperience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, CloudFormation or similar technologiesStrong understanding of networking, security, monitoring, backup and disaster recoverySolid experience with relational databases, database design, optimisation and performance tuningExperience with Docker, Kubernetes and automated CI/CD pipelinesExperience implementing monitoring, alerting, logging and operational support processesProven experience leading engineering teams, mentoring engineers and driving technical best practiceStrong understanding of building scalable, secure, maintainable and production-ready platforms Desirable: Knowledge or interest in sports and sports data Understanding of React and modern JavaScript technologies Exposure to NoSQL, graph or vector databases Understanding of AI-native engineering practices and tools such as Cursor or Gemini Why apply? Join a leading organisation operating at the forefront of sports data and analytics Play a key technical role in developing platforms supporting major sports products and services Work across Python, AWS, data engineering, cloud infrastructure and modern DevOps technologies Lead technical delivery and mentor engineers while helping shape engineering best practice Support technology powering data and products used across a global sporting audience Join a collaborative environment with strong opportunities for learning and development Benefit from 25 days' holiday plus bank holidays, flexible working, pension, life insurance, Employee Assistance Programme and training opportunities