Teamlead Software Engineer

Founded in 1948, Lely is committed to a sustainable, profitable, and enjoyable future in agriculture. Driven by the challenges faced by farmers and the needs of cows, we develop high-quality robots and data systems that improve animal welfare, flexibility, and productivity on dairy farms. Our mission is to support sustainable food production.

For more than 30 years, we have been a global leader in the sale and service of automated systems for successive generations of dairy farmers. Every day, we inspire our colleagues to offer customers innovative solutions and to be a reliable partner for long-term advice and support. With our state-of-the-art Lely Campus in Maassluis and a global network of dedicated Lely Centers offering customized sales and service, Lely is active in more than fifty countries.

What if you could combine your software engineering experience with your passion for helping people grow? As a Lead Software Engineer at Lely, you will lead a team of software engineers while helping improve the way the team works, learns and develops.

You will be the formal line manager for a team of 7 software engineers, with the team expected to grow over time. Around 60% of your role is focused on people leadership. You will coach your team, lead one-on-ones and performance conversations, support career development and create an environment where people feel trusted to take ownership and challenged to grow.

The other 40% focuses on technical and organizational improvement. You will not be expected to code or perform code reviews. Instead, you use your software engineering background to understand the challenges your team faces, facilitate good technical decisions and improve the way the team works.

You will balance people development, technical improvement and delivery, making deliberate choices about where your attention can create the most value. You will also work with Product Owners, Software Architects, UX and other disciplines to help the team move forward and contribute to the wider software organization.

Your main responsibilities include:

• Leading and developing a team of software engineers through one-on-ones, feedback, performance and development conversations.
• Creating an environment where people feel safe to take ownership, challenge ideas and step outside their comfort zone to grow.
• Using your software engineering experience to understand technical challenges and improve engineering practices and ways of working.
• Balancing people, technical and delivery priorities and making clear choices about where to focus.
• Collaborating with Product Owners, Software Architects, UX and other disciplines to align priorities and enable effective delivery.
• Contributing to the continuous improvement of the wider software organization.

You are a proven people leader with a software engineering background. You have experience managing software engineers as direct reports and enjoy helping people develop while keeping an eye on the bigger picture.

You combine empathy with the confidence to challenge when needed. You can balance multiple priorities, make deliberate choices and engage meaningfully with technical challenges without needing to be hands-on in coding.

In addition, you bring:

• A bachelor’s or master's degree in Computer Science or a similar field.
• Proven experience as a people leader with software engineers as direct reports, including one-on-ones, performance reviews, feedback and development conversations.
• A strong software engineering background and the ability to understand technical challenges across software development.
• Experience improving ways of working, team effectiveness and engineering practices.
• A coaching mindset and the ability to challenge people to learn and grow.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across teams, disciplines and locations.
• An ambition to grow into broader leadership responsibilities over time, while being equally comfortable focusing on leading and developing your team.

If you recognise yourself in the role but do not meet every requirement, we would still like to hear from you.

Working at Lely means contributing to sustainable progress within one of the most innovative organizations in the Netherlands. You contribute to making the agricultural sector future-proof - and we make sure that you get all the space, resources and support you need to do so.

• An international working environment with opportunities for own initiative and entrepreneurship.
• Excellent working conditions, including up to 8 weeks of vacation per year and a good pension scheme.
• A salary within the scale of €6400 - €9000 gross per month, in which we like to see opportunities for growth from your starting salary towards the future
• Good growth opportunities: you are in control of your development and can choose from various training courses through our Lely Academy - from personal development to job-specific training.
• Our modern Lely Campus offers daily access to extensive sports facilities: an indoor gym, outdoor padel courts, an outdoor basketball and volleyball court, table tennis and table soccer. You can join Hyrox workouts or sign up for personal training - and challenge your colleagues during an active break.
• Enjoy fresh coffee and tea from our own barista, with milk straight from our farm, as well as a healthy and affordable company restaurant.
• A healthy work-life balance thanks to our hybrid work policy: you work at least three days a week on Campus, with flexible working hours and plenty of room to spend extra time on site (between 06:00 and 20:00).
• A free shuttle bus will take you to and from the metro in Maassluis, so your workday starts and ends smoothly.
• Successes need to be celebrated: from anniversaries to Christmas parties - at Lely we know how to do it!

We are also proud that our efforts and vision have been rewarded by winning the Rotterdam Entrepreneur Award 2025!

Recruitment & selection agency, consultancy, and/or secondment agency?

We appreciate the interest, but we are looking for all our candidates directly. We understand that you, as an intermediary, want to present candidates for our great positions and thus contribute to our ambitions, but this is not how we have set up our recruitment. This means that all unsolicited profiles offered on Lely vacancies will be treated as direct applications.