Engineering Lead - Sports Platform

Midnite is a next-generation sports betting and gaming platform. The Sports Group owns Midnite's sportsbook experience, and the Sportsbook Platform team is modernising the back office and practical use of AI. We're looking for an Engineering Lead to provide hands-on technical leadership while formally managing and developing a team of three to four engineers. This is not a conventional Engineering Manager role or a purely technical lead position: you'll create PRs, write production code and release features while setting technical direction and helping the whole team perform at its best.

Responsibilities

Set pragmatic technical direction and lead system design across clients, APIs, services, data, infrastructure and integrations; Create PRs, write production code and release features, alongside contributing technical designs, investigations and reviews; Work with Product and Design to turn ambiguous opportunities into clear milestones, small deliverables and frequent releases; Manage three to four engineers through clear expectations, one-to-ones, feedback, performance management and development support; Develop engineers through design discussions, reviews, pairing, debugging and production incidents without becoming a bottleneck; Champion effective testing, observability, safe releases and strong production feedback loops; Make sensible trade-offs, keep risks visible and help the team improve systems following production problems; Use AI responsibly and contribute to hiring, onboarding and shared engineering practices

Requirements

Significant backend engineering experience, including time operating at senior or lead level; Deep backend expertise with a full-stack, systems-thinking mindset across clients, APIs, services, data, infrastructure and operations; Strong Python skills, or experience with another modern backend language and a willingness to learn Python; Experience setting technical direction and designing, delivering and operating reliable systems; Experience in formally managing engineers, or strong evidence of readiness to own one-to-ones, feedback, performance and development for a team of three to four; Challenge assumptions constructively, helping Product and Design find simpler or more effective ways to achieve the intended outcome and the ability to break ambiguous, complex work into simple, safe deliverables; Solid database and production-engineering fundamentals, including AWS, CI/CD and observability; Communicates with energy and clarity, brings others into technical discussions, and helps create momentum across the team

Benefits

Private health insurance with zero excess, including optical cover and optional dental; Income protection; Tenure holiday policy: an extra two days leave after three years, increasing to 30 days annually after five years; Flexible working and a fully supported home office setup; Nursery salary sacrifice scheme; Salary sacrifice schemes for tech and holidays; Retail discounts and subscription perks; Quarterly team socials