POD Lead (Kotlin/Java)

Job Title: POD Lead (Kotlin/Java)
Location: Sheffield 3x a week
Salary/Rate: £515 Daily
Start Date: 13/07/26
Job Type: Initial 6 month contract

Company Introduction
We have an exciting opportunity now available with one of our sector-leading financial clients! They are currently looking for a skilled POD lead to join their team for an initial six-month contract.

About the project:

• Provide day-to-day technical leadership for an agile engineering team, supporting the overall Tech lead to deliver outcomes at pace and with quality.
• Lead technical input into backlog refinement: break epics/features into well-defined user stories, clarify acceptance criteria, identify dependencies, and ensure work is delivery ready.
• Support sprint planning by shaping technical approaches, identifying spikes, and helping the team size work appropriately.
• Design, develop and implement primarily Back End features (Kotlin/Java APIs and services), with a small element of UI work using a simple UI framework.
• Build and evolve APIs and microservices, applying consistent engineering patterns (error handling, logging, resilience, security-by-design).
• Contribute to and support architectural and design decisions with the Tech Lead, documenting key decisions and trade-offs where needed.

Skills & experience we require:

• Strong Kotlin experience, or significant Java experience with a willingness to learn Kotlin.
• Experience leading or acting as a senior engineer within an agile delivery team (squad-level technical leadership).
• Proven ability to refine and decompose work (features into implementable stories), manage dependencies, and remove technical blockers.
• Strong experience in microservices and API development, and asynchronous messaging technologies such as Kafka or similar event-driven platforms.
• Experience in at least two or three of the following: API development, SQL/databases, HTML/JavaScript.
• Strong technical and analytical troubleshooting skills, including production support mindset.
• Experience with standard developer collaboration tools: GitHub/Bitbucket, Jira, Confluence.
• Excellent written and spoken English, with the ability to communicate technical decisions clearly.
• Good interpersonal skills and a collaborative approach to working across roles (engineering, testing, product, control owners).

If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply now with your updated CV in Microsoft Word/PDF format.

Disclaimer
Notwithstanding any guidelines given to level of experience sought, we will consider candidates from outside this range if they can demonstrate the necessary competencies.
Square One is acting as both an employment agency and an employment business, and is an equal opportunities recruitment business. Square One embraces diversity and will treat everyone equally. Please see our website for our full diversity statement.