Lead Developer (Java)

b Overview /b p In this Lead Developer role, you will define technical direction for scalable, secure services and guide a fast-moving engineering team through the full delivery lifecycle. You’ll act as a design authority, translating business needs into robust architectures while staying hands-on to validate concepts. You’ll champion secure-by-design and resilience, ensuring high-quality software aligns with enterprise patterns. This is a chance to shape HMRC’s world-class IT and impact services serving millions of customers. /p b Pay / Benefits /b ul li Civil Service Pension scheme /li li Flexible and Hybrid Working /li li 25 days leave (rises to 30) /li li Salary £58,541 - £72,711 /li li Moves Adjustment Payment consideration (Leeds) /li li Coaching and development /li /ul b Responsibilities /b ul li Set technical strategy and direction to support scalable, secure services /li li Provide expert judgement and escalate complex technical issues /li li Act as design authority ensuring alignment with Enterprise Architecture Patterns /li li Oversee build/run/improve lifecycle ensuring resilience and compliance /li li Provide leadership, delegate work, review approaches, and maintain quality /li li Assure security compliance and embed secure-by-design principles /li li Lead solution design and technical decision-making across teams /li li Ensure performance, design standards, and cross-team technology choices /li li Contribute to project plans with risk assessment and mitigation /li li Make and record critical decisions following governance frameworks /li /ul b Key requirements /b ul li Detailed designs for complex, secure, resilient Java services and enterprise-scale applications /li li Strong Java engineering background with capability to challenge designs /li li Experience with REST APIs, Spring Boot/Cloud, Redis, Kubernetes, Docker /li li Java Messaging (Kafka / RabbitMQ) /li li Relational and non-relational databases (MySQL, Oracle, MongoDB) /li li Knowledge of cloud-native distributed design; hosted on AWS (S3, EC2, EKS) /li li Experience with microservice architectures and UML diagram techniques /li li Stakeholder management and collaboration with BA, Delivery Managers, Product Managers /li li Hands-on delivery experience with advanced problem-solving in complex integrations /li /ul ul li Proactive and self-driven /li li Strategic and pragmatic /li li Design-led /li li Java (enterprise-scale) /li li REST APIs /li li Spring Boot/Cloud /li /ul