Lead Full Stack Engineer (Backend Leaning)

Who We Are:

We’re on a mission to close the world’s tech skills gap. 

We help organisations navigate the future of technology, combining human expertise, emerging tech and AI to deliver better outcomes, faster.

Since 2014, we’ve worked side-by-side with clients to solve complex challenges, build high-performing teams, and create lasting capability. As technology continues to evolve, we believe the most successful organisations will be those that combine the best of both: human ingenuity AND intelligent technology.

That belief is embedded in everything we do. We call it the genius of the AND: deep expertise AND practical delivery, innovation AND responsibility, ambitious work AND sustainable careers.

Through our Guide, Build and Equip approach, we help organisations embrace change, deliver meaningful impact, and develop the skills they need to thrive in an increasingly agentic world.

About you:

• You care deeply about producing high-quality work that delivers real value
• You’re comfortable navigating ambiguity and solving complex problems collaboratively
• You bring strong expertise in your craft, alongside a willingness to keep learning
• You communicate clearly and build trust quickly with clients and teammates
• You’re pragmatic, adaptable and outcome-focused
• You enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others grow
• You value low-ego collaboration and enjoy working as part of multidisciplinary teams

• Strong hands‑on backend engineering experience, with depth in one or more of: Java, Node.js, TypeScript, Python or Go, and the ability to work confidently across multiple languages when needed.
• Proven ability to design and build scalable, resilient, and maintainable backend systems, including REST/GraphQL APIs, event‑driven architectures, and distributed services.
• Hands‑on experience with AWS (Lambda, ECS, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS, API Gateway, Step Functions, etc.) and strong understanding of cloud‑native patterns. Exposure to to GCP, Azure, or other Cloud Platforms would be a valuable plus.
• Solid experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred), CI/CD pipelines, and modern deployment practices.
• Comfortable working across the stack, contributing to frontend codebases when needed, even though your strength lies in backend and systems engineering.
• Demonstrates technical leadership, shaping architectural direction, reviewing designs, and role‑modelling high‑quality engineering practices.
• Strong grounding in system design, including trade‑off analysis, performance considerations, observability, and operational readiness.
• Able to take ownership of complex technical problems, make pragmatic decisions, and clearly explain reasoning to both engineers and non‑technical stakeholders.

• Practical experience integrating AI into backend systems — e.g., orchestrating AI services, building AI‑powered workflows, or leveraging AI tools to improve engineering productivity.
• Experience building AI-enabled systems (including LLM- or RAG-based solutions) from MVP or proof-of-concept through to production-ready implementations, with consideration for reliability, evaluation, security, and maintainability.
• Understands where AI meaningfully enhances backend systems (e.g., classification, summarisation, anomaly detection) versus where traditional algorithms are more appropriate.
• Able to evaluate risk, cost, scalability, and maintainability when proposing AI‑driven solutions.
• Curious about emerging AI patterns, frameworks, and tooling, with the ability to apply them pragmatically in line with client needs.
• Comfortable advising clients on realistic AI opportunities and helping them navigate hype vs. practical value.

• Experience working in a consulting or client-facing environment, comfortable operating in ambiguous problem spaces and contributing to both solution discovery and delivery.
• Able to balance client outcomes, commercial considerations, and technical integrity, adapting approach and communication style depending on context.
• Acts as a trusted technical partner within delivery teams and with clients, influencing outcomes through clarity, pragmatism, and credibility.

• Experience with high‑scale distributed systems, event streaming (Kafka, Kinesis), or microservices.
• Exposure to serverless architectures, container orchestration or hybrid cloud environments.
• Familiarity with security best practices, including IAM, secrets management, and secure API design.

Why join AND Digital?

We’re building a culture where talented people can do meaningful work, continue growing, AND enjoy the journey along the way.

Our model is designed to build belonging and connection: we’re organised into regional ‘Clubs’ of no more than 80 people, so you (and our clients) get the benefits of that small company feel while also being connected to a larger whole.

Our Practice Areas act as a ‘second home’ for our ANDis - a place where you can innovate and learn with like-minded experts who care deeply about their craft, support each other generously, and believe the best ideas come from collaboration, not hierarchy.

Our culture is rooted in our values of Wonder, Share and Delight, and shows up through five traits that we celebrate and nurture in all our ANDis: we value curiosity, ambition and a growth-mindset. We are deeply client-centric. Most important of all we are human - we create an inclusive environment where people feel trusted, supported and able to be themselves.

By joining AND, we’ll provide:

• Opportunities to work on projects with big clients and the chance to produce meaningful work that makes a difference to people’s lives.
• A “Blended Working” model, meaning you will be able to work in a range of locations from; your home, in your clubhouse, on a client, as well as just a change of scenery.
• A dedicated career scrum team, designed to help you reach your career goals and develop the skills you need to be your best self.
• An annual budget for training and upskilling, including allocated days off so you don’t have to study in your own free time.
• Monthly and quarterly team socials - on us - ranging from after work drinks, to driving experience days with your fellow club members.
• A safe environment for you to be yourself and challenge yourself.

Benefits:

• 25 days bookable holiday + flexible Bank Holidays 
• Pension: 6% of salary paid by AND Digital with a further 2% paid by you (can be increased by choice).
• Aviva healthcare cover (including pre-existing condition cover) for you.
• Flexibenefit: £1000 assigned to you via our benefits portal to select or upgrade the benefits that suit you the most. Any unused allowance from the £1000 can be taken as cash. 
• Life Assurance.
• Income Protection.
• Eye test + first pair of glasses.
• Parental Benefits: Generous Enhanced Maternity and Enhanced Partner (Paternity) Leave.

Equal Opportunities Statement

Diversity and inclusion are hugely important to us, and we’re committed to providing equal opportunities for all. We’re actively recruiting for a diverse and inclusive workforce so want to ensure we do everything we can to support your application.

We want you to feel safe and empowered to let us know if you need any adjustments to be made to your application or interview process, so please speak to our recruitment team.