Lead Full Stack Engineer

Lead Full Stack Engineer| Edinburgh (Hybrid) | Permanent | £65,000 - £75,000 per annumA GovTech scale-up delivering a live licensing platform for the Scottish public sector is hiring a Lead Full Stack Engineer to take technical ownership across their Laravel, InertiaJS and NextJS stack.This is a hands-on technical leadership role - you'll be writing code, making architecture calls, and setting the standard for a small, senior engineering team, while reporting directly into the CTO.The RoleYou'll take ownership across the full stack: Laravel migrations and Eloquent models, InertiaJS admin interfaces, a NextJS citizen-facing portal, and an embeddable public register. You'll work from spec through to PR, security review, UAT and government release sign-off - and you'll be the technical reference point the rest of the team looks to.This is not a role hidden behind tickets. You'll be expected to make judgement calls, ask the right questions early, and hold the line on correctness and accessibility as much as delivery speed.Key ResponsibilitiesOwn technical delivery of licensing workflows end-to-end, from architecture through to productionLead integration work with government services (OAuth2/OIDC, PKCE-based identity verification, notification and payment platforms, Companies House, DVLA, address lookup APIs)Set and maintain engineering standards across a strongly-typed Laravel codebase (high type coverage, static analysis, refactoring discipline)Guide the team's approach to accessible React UI built against a government design systemLead serverless cloud deployment and operational decision-makingDrive security design reviews, threat modelling and SAST/DAST/SCA remediationOwn the technical approach to onboarding new verticals on a config-driven platformShape and build AI-assisted features (form validation, document/eligibility checks, triage tooling)Mentor engineers, review code and PRs, and act as a technical escalation pointSkills & Experience Required5+ years' commercial full stack development experience, backend and frontendTrack record of technical leadership - architecture decisions, mentoring, driving engineering standardsPHP 8.3+ (constructor property promotion, readonly properties, enums, strict types)Laravel 11+ (or strong Symfony experience), InertiaJS or strong ReactPest or PHPUnit - feature, unit and browser testingPostgreSQL - migrations, indexing, complex queriesExperience with queues and background jobs (SQS/Redis, idempotent job design, dead-letter handling)NextJS 14+ (App Router), React 18+, TypeScriptTailwind CSS, SWR or React QueryAccessibility experience - WCAG 2.2 AA, keyboard navigation, screen-reader testingStrong Git workflow, comfortable in a regulated SDLC (code review, security sign-off, audit trails)Clear written communication for technical documentation and stakeholder-facing decision recordsDesirableServerless Laravel hosting, AWS serverless stack experienceManaged NextJS hosting, application observability tooling (e.g. Sentry)Cypress or Playwright, MSW for E2E mockingRBAC and multi-tenant, team-scoped data patternsGitHub Actions CI/CD, SAST/DAST toolingBackground in a regulated sector - gov-tech, fintech or healthtechPrior experience leading or mentoring within an engineering teamSalary & Benefits£65,000 - £75,000 per annum30 days holiday plus your birthday offHybrid working (2 days office, 3 flexible)Enhanced maternity/paternity leaveCompany pension with employer contributions from day oneConference and training budget plus equipment allowanceModern, well-maintained codebase (Laravel 12, React 19, TypeScript, PHPStan, Pest 4, Rector)Interview ProcessIntroductory call (30 minutes)Technical assessment (40 minutes - 1 hour)Face-to-face final interview in EdinburghEligibilityThis role sits within a regulated environment delivering services on behalf of a public sector body. Candidates must have the right to work in the UK and be willing to complete standard pre-employment background screening.Key Skills: Full Stack Engineer, Lead Engineer, Laravel, PHP, React, NextJS, TypeScript, InertiaJS, PostgreSQL, Tailwind CSS, Technical Lead, GovTech, Edinburgh

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