DevX_POD Lead (Kotlin/Java)

Summary: The DevX_POD Lead role focuses on leading an agile engineering team in Sheffield, primarily utilizing Kotlin and Java technologies. The position requires a proactive individual to manage technical leadership, backlog refinement, and the development of back-end features while ensuring high-quality delivery. The role also emphasizes coaching best practices and collaborating with various stakeholders to enhance product outcomes. This hybrid position allows for a mix of office and remote work.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide day-to-day technical leadership for an agile engineering team.
• Lead technical input into backlog refinement and ensure work is delivery ready.
• Support sprint planning and shape technical approaches.
• Design, develop, and implement back-end features and APIs.
• Build and evolve APIs and microservices with consistent engineering patterns.
• Contribute to architectural and design decisions with documentation.
• Coach the team in development best practices and drive effective peer reviews.
• Work in an agile CI/CD environment to deliver rapid iterations.
• Collaborate with developers, testers, and the wider organization.
• Engage with customers/users to resolve issues and respond to feature requests.

Key Skills:

• 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.
• Proven ability to refine and decompose work and manage dependencies.
• Strong experience in microservices and API development.
• Experience with asynchronous messaging technologies such as Kafka.
• Experience in API development, SQL/databases, HTML/JavaScript.
• Strong technical and analytical troubleshooting skills.
• Experience with standard developer collaboration tools: GitHub, Jira, Confluence.
• Excellent written and spoken English communication skills.
• Good interpersonal skills and a collaborative approach.

Salary (Rate): £529 daily

City: Sheffield

Country: United Kingdom

Working Arrangements: hybrid

IR35 Status: inside IR35

Seniority Level: Mid-Level

Industry: IT

Detailed Description From Employer:

DevX_POD Lead (Kotlin/Java)
Hybrid 60% office-40% Remote - Sheffield
Duration: 30/11/2026
Rate £529
MUST BE PAYE THROUGH UMBRELLA

Role Description:

Technologies we use in the role (Required): Kotlin, Java, Microservices, REST APIs, SQL/Databases, HTML/JavaScript, Asynchronous messaging / event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar) Proactive person who will own the end to end including resolution of blockers and prioritisation of work. Experience working with standard developer collaboration Tools: Github, Jira, Confluence 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. Be capable of designing, building and delivering an in-house solution end to end from shaping the initial idea and requirements, through development, testing and ongoing support. Coach and uplift the team in development best practice: clean code, test driven development, secure coding, and maintainable design. Drive effective peer reviews and engineering standards, ensuring code quality, readability and attention to detail. Work in an agile CI/CD environment to deliver rapid iterations at a sustainable velocity, promoting automation and quality gates. Collaborate with developers, testers and the wider organisation to build, run and improve products. Proactively engage with customers/users to resolve issues, respond to feature requests, and reduce recurring operational pain. 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).

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