{"id":2735955,"url":"https://alion.io/job/leidos-lead-software-engineer-7","title":"Lead Software Engineer","company":{"id":7791,"name":"Leidos","domain":"leidos.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/leidos","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"services","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":80,"open_postings":173,"ghost_share":0.006,"stale_share":0.798,"repost_share":0.006,"time_to_fill_p50_days":27,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Chester, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":61500,"max":78800,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":105130},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"Bamboo","optional":false},{"name":"Bitbucket","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Jira","optional":false},{"name":"Scrum","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":true},{"name":"Linux","optional":true},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":true},{"name":"Perl","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Rest API","optional":true},{"name":"SOAP","optional":true},{"name":"Unix","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-07T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-05-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-17T08:20:57Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":163,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":163},"description":"Lead Software Engineer\nLocation: Farnborough, with flexibility to work from home dependent on business demands\nSalary: £61,500 - £78,800\nThe Role:\nThe 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.\nAs 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.\nThis is atechnical 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.\nWhat will I be doing?\nProvide 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.\nProvide technical leadership across delivery and engineering practices, ensuring agreed standards and processes are applied consistently throughout the project lifecycle.\nDevelop, debug, test, document, and deploy software enhancements aligned with the Software Development Strategy.\nLead 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.\nDrive strong engineering practices across the team\nEnsure adherence to established code review standards\nEnsure defined quality gates are consistently met for the project\nPromote clean, maintainable, well-documented code\n\nGuide system design and development by analysing information needs, system flows, data usage, and work processes, and translating these into practical implementation approaches.\nOwn 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.\nDetermine operational feasibility by evaluating requests, requirements, problem definitions, solution options, and their impact on operational systems.\nLead engineers and collaborate closely with architects and the test team to ensure new and modified software is fully verified prior to promotion.\nBreakdown the design into workable, and reportable, tasks for developers to incrementally deliver against in a Scrum/Agile fashion.\nOversee and enable test automation within the scope of the project:Ensure engineers deliver unit and integration tests as a standard part of development\nSupport and coordinate automation activities, with the test team retaining ownership of overall outcomes\n\nSupport and continuously improve Agile delivery practices, including planning, estimation, backlog refinement, and delivery cadence.\nEnsure effective use of development tooling and processes, including CI/CD pipelines and integrated security scanning.\nMentor and support other engineers, helping to raise technical capability and consistency across the team.\nEffectively communicate with internal stakeholders,influencing technical decisions through clear, concise, and well-reasoned input.\nWhat essential skills does Leidos need from me?\nExtensive software engineering experience, including substantial hands-on delivery using:Java (Java 8 and modern Java versions such as 17 and 21)\nAPI design and implementation\n\nProven experience operating as a technical leader, including:Leading technical decision-making\nGuiding and mentoring engineers\nRepresenting the software team in customer and stakeholder engagements\n\nStrong understanding of design patterns and a solid, structured approach to software development.\nStrong understanding of git/Bitbucket branching strategies on large projects with moderately sized teams contributing\nFamiliarity with Relational Databases (PostgresSQL), SQL and JDBC\nDemonstrated experience writing unit and integration tests as a normal part of delivery.\nFamiliarity with Agile software development processes and working within iterative delivery models.\nFamiliarity with the Atlassian tool suite (e.g. Jira, Bitbucket, Bamboo), or equivalent tooling, with a solid understanding of CI/CD concepts, workflows, and practices.\nExperience ensuring compliance with code review standards, quality gates, CI/CD pipelines, and security scanning processes.\nDesirable Skills and Experience:\nFamiliarity with integration and architectural patterns (e.g. adapters, orchestration patterns such as saga).\nExperience with SOAP, REST webservices\nExperience with IBM Web Application Server or JBoss\nFamiliarity with Unix, Linux or other variants\nPerl, Python, and/or bash scripting experience.\nExperience with C, C++\nStrong performance debugging skills\nExperience contributing to or supporting test automation initiatives (UI and/or API).\nThis 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.\nClearance Requirements: The successful applicant will be required to hold and maintain UK Security Clearance and additional programme clearances.\nWhat we do for you:\nAt 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.\nWe provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent. Our reward scheme includes:\nContributory Pension Scheme\nPrivate Medical Insurance\n33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)\nAccess to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)\nFlexi-Time Working\nCommitment to Diversity:\nWe 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.\nWho We Are:\nLeidos UK & EUROPE - we work to make the world safer, healthier, and more efficient through technology, engineering and science.\nLeidos is agrowing 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.\nWhat Makes Us Different:\nPurpose: 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.\nCollaboration: 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.\nPeople: 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.\nIf 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.\nOriginal Posting:\nFor U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.\nPay Range:\n£61,500.00-£78,800.00The 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.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9408,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Equity","Gym membership","Health insurance"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["National Security","C4ISR","Defense Manufacturing","Engineering Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-16T19:05:38Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":7,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.252,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":163,"expected_fill_days":27,"reasons":["conf:1","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":105130,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/leidos-lead-software-engineer-7","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/leidos-lead-software-engineer-7.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T08:45:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":11712,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":7791},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=7791"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fleidos-lead-software-engineer-7"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fleidos-lead-software-engineer-7"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fleidos-lead-software-engineer-7"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/leidos-lead-software-engineer-7\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fleidos-lead-software-engineer-7"}]}