Lead Software Engineer

Participates as a senior team member in the design, development, and maintenance of multi-tiered business applications. Individuals holding this position are typically expected to be mentors from technical and delivery perspectives as well as work independently as a member of a team. Incumbents have a thorough understanding of the available technology landscape, tools, and existing designs. This individual also participates fully in all team practices and standards. This role interfaces with IT colleagues and other stakeholders to evaluate defined complex business requirements and processes, assesses available technologies, determines infrastructure, and recommends solution options. Incumbents play a significant role in building application solutions which may involve diverse development platforms, software, hardware, technologies, and tools. Demonstrates personal accountability and actively engages the team in demonstrating accountability. Supports quality efforts within the team.

The core responsibilities for the job include the following:

Analysis and Design:

• Analyses the impact of requirements and works with solution architects on software solutions.
• Must consider usability, extensibility, efficiency, and performance during all phases of development.
• Applies design patterns to build secure, maintainable, testable, and evolvable software to ensure coherence across applications.
• Participates in designing software solutions and prepares technical documentation taking into consideration the enterprise architecture, including authoritative sources of data; data and systems integration; and interrelationships across multiple subject areas (including transformation rules).
• Participates and leads design reviews.
• Contributes to the product backlogs. Assists in scheduling backlog items in the optimal execution order and ensures that the backlog is comprehensive.
• Advocates adoption of enterprise initiatives. Helps develop business relationships and integrate activities with other IT departments as appropriate to ensure successful implementation and support efforts.

Development:

• Estimation: Develops and facilitates technical estimates and timeframes without having complete information and provides a confidence level in the estimate. Mentors others in good estimation techniques
• Coding: Mentors developers in the design and construction of complex business applications and prepares technical specifications to develop software solutions. Leads by example in the adoption of FM Global best practices, architectural principles, and security standards. Leads the evolution and improvement of these standards and practices. Develops software to transform and migrate data across environments. Actively participates in peer code reviews and is responsible for code quality.
• Test Automation: Responsible for writing pre-deployment automated tests for any delivered code. Participates in testing and debugging of overall system as required. Reviews automated test code to ensure appropriate test coverage. Demonstrates ability to set up and monitor automated tests in the CI/CD pipeline. Makes decisions regarding where to focus and improve the efficiency, coverage, and stability of automated tests. Participates in coding and maintenance of post-deployment test automation frameworks.
• Support: Supports and plans efforts to implement the application in production and support post-production. Ensures development work includes detailed, high-quality documentation at an appropriate level to allow for maintenance and support. Plans and executes reduction of technical debt and mitigates risks associated with upgrades

Research:

• Participates in continuous improvement through experimentation to stay abreast of the changing technological landscape and clearly articulates and presents value to the product organisation.
• Engages in delivery of applicable enterprise initiatives.
• Actively participates within learning forums and contributes to setting forum objectives.
• Deeply understands the technology/business landscape.

Leadership:

• Encourages team member contribution within design and implementation efforts within product teams.
• Serve as a role model in delivery accountability, process, and mindset.
• Demonstrates and continuously broadens technical capabilities and domain knowledge so that the individual can serve effectively on a variety of product teams.
• Enables successful outcomes on teams by proactively identifying and raising transparency about impediments.
• Mentors junior team members.
• Fosters teamwork and excellent communication among team members.
• Provides meaningful feedback.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience required to perform essential job functions.
• Additional Experience Qualifier (optional): 7+ years of application development experience with large-scale business applications in a fast-paced iterative development environment.
• 5+ years designing, developing, and implementing business applications from business concept through production.
• Object-orientated design, development, and implementation of business applications in current computing architectures.
• Working knowledge of relevant technologies: front-end tools, middleware, databases, ORMs, development frameworks, design patterns, API design, test automation, DevOps, cloud architecture, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Ability to demonstrate skills in solving complex problems within and across teams.
• Strong analytical skills required. Ability to develop accurate estimates for complex solutions and bring transparency to the estimation process.
• Demonstrates drive to align estimates to meet organisational goals.
• Strong interpersonal skills are required. Strong work ethic and ability to demonstrate personal accountability for successful product delivery.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with an ability to translate technical concepts to the appropriate level of the audience.
• Ability to work self-directed as part of a cross-functional team and show commitment to the product and team.
• Instils a sense of urgency in the team and focuses the team on efficient delivery.
• Ability to present technical concepts is desired.

Must Have Skills:

• Spec-Driven Development Execution: Implement and maintain machine-readable specs (Markdown, JSON, YAML) that drive AI-assisted planning, code generation, and testing with attention to efficiency and reuse.
• AI Agent Implementation: Build and enhance AI agents such as code generation, review, and test agents using established patterns, while being mindful of usage frequency and cost impacts. Prompt and Instruction Authoring: Develop and refine structured prompts and instructions that balance output quality with token efficiency and predictable model behaviour
• Human-in-the-Loop Workflow Support: Implement human review steps and guardrails within AI workflows to ensure quality control and avoid unnecessary automated compute cycles.
• Cost-Aware AI Usage: Apply FinOps principles by understanding model pricing, prompt size, execution frequency, and environment selection to help optimise AI-related costs.
• Reuse and standardisation: Leverage shared specs, agents, and templates to reduce duplication, minimise compute waste, and improve cost efficiency across teams.
• AI Output Validation and Testing: Write tests and validation checks for AI-generated artefacts to catch issues early and reduce rework, reruns, and excess consumption.
• CI/CD Integration for AI Workflows: Integrate AI-driven steps into CI/CD pipelines with an understanding of when automation adds value versus cost.
• Cloud and AI Resource Awareness: Monitor and understand AI service usage in development and test environments, following established budgets, quotas, and optimisation guidance.
• Continuous Learning in AI and FinOps: Stay current on AI tooling, model capabilities, and basic FinOps practices to contribute to efficient and sustainable AI-drive development.
• Must-Have skills: Cloud Engineering (Azure) *SDLC workflow CI/CD in C# or Python.
• Education and Certifications: 4-year bachelor's degree required.