Lead Software Engineer

Jet2.com and Jet2holidays are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to join our high-performance Search team. This is an exciting hands-on role where you will be responsible for the functionality that powers the customer's first interaction with us, working across a breadth of systems and technologies to deliver value and Create Memories for both our business and our customers.

This is a role for a technical leader who loves data and solving complex problems. You won't just be building features; you'll be optimizing the engine that drives our business, ensuring that when a customer dreams of a holiday, we find it for them instantly and accurately.

As our Lead Software Engineer , you’ll have access to a wide range of benefits including:

  • Hybrid working
  • Colleague discounts on Jet2.com flights and Jet2holidays packages
  • Access to a generous discretionary profit share scheme

What You'll Be Doing

As our Lead Software Engineer , you will be leading a fast-paced scrum team, made up of a lead engineer, software engineers, automation and manual test engineers, product owners and business analysts. You will also:

  • Design and code low-latency search algorithms and data structures in the core search applications, explicitly optimizing for performance to handle high-concurrency traffic without degrading the customer experience.
  • Creating a vision for designing and building robust and scalable systems.
  • Making architectural decisions in collaboration with the Architecture Team focusing on high-availability, low-latency, and caching strategies to handle massive user load during peak booking periods.
  • Supporting team activities through the software development lifecycle such as planning and estimation.
  • Line managing and mentoring team members to facilitate their growth and progression.
  • Championing current and new coding standards and practices.
  • Driving a culture of continuous improvement.
  • Improving the developer experience through automation & tooling. You will drive the implementation of CI/CD pipelines that ensure safety and quality, removing the need for manual intervention in live environments.
  • Implementing observability and metrics within the search stack. You will ensure the team has visibility into application performance, search accuracy, and error rates to facilitate rapid debugging and data-driven improvements.

What is the tech stack?

The search platform has a wide range of technologies including:

  • C#, .NET Core, and Web API.
  • Event driven architectures (Kafka)
  • RESTful Microservices – light-weight efficient, decoupled APIs that scale well.
  • Storage technologies like SQL, Redis.
  • Cloud technologies (AWS)
  • Containerised environments using Kubernetes, Docker and CI/CD pipelines.
  • Automated Testing frameworks with a strong focus on Performance and Load Testing (k6) alongside BDD.

What You'll Have

Our Lead Software Engineer will have deep technical understanding of Search Engines and caching mechanisms in a high-traffic e-commerce environment, be extremely passionate about technology and have some previous line management experience. You will also:

  • Have strong written and verbal communication skills and be comfortable communicating and building relationships with stakeholders across the business.
  • Have prior technical leadership and mentoring experience and be willing to enhance your skills in this area to support the growth of software development team.
  • Be an excellent role model for the team and colleagues, with an approachable nature and the ability to work as part of a team.
  • Be the point of contact for expert guidance and team support.
  • A mindset focused on DevSecOps and Automation. You prefer building tools and guardrails over manual processes and have experience creating observable systems.
  • Experience managing Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and understanding the impact of latency on user behaviour.

Job Details

Company
Jet2.com and Jet2holidays
Location
Leeds, UK
Hybrid / Remote Options
Posted