Lead Software Engineer (Java)

Working at CreateFuture CreateFuture is an AI-native consulting partner where people do work that matters and are supported to do it well. We work alongside organisations such as PayPal, adidas, NatWest, FanDuel and Money Saving Expert, building digital products and services that make a difference while always putting people first. We’re a team of creators.

We write code, shape delivery, build go-to-market strategies, develop AI solutions and create the practices that support our people. We work side by side with our clients, challenging what’s not working and helping them to build the future. Our commitment to craft, quality, and culture has helped us scale to over 600 people in just a few years.

Benefits

35 days leave (including bank holidays). Private medical insurance. Enhanced parental and adoption leave.

Financial coaching + 5% pension match. 40 hours of paid learning and development.

CreateFuture is a Great Place to Work-Certified™ company and has won Best Workplaces UK multiple years in a row. Join us on our journey. Let’s create tomorrow, together, today.

About The Role

and team: Lead Backend Java Engineer Lead engineering excellence. Shape technical strategy. Deliver meaningful impact.

We're looking for an exceptional Lead Backend Java Engineer to define technical direction, inspire engineering teams, and build world-class backend systems. This role combines deep technical expertise with engineering leadership, enabling you to influence architecture, delivery, AI adoption, and engineering culture across multiple teams and client engagements. You'll be a recognised technical leader who enjoys solving complex challenges, mentoring engineers, and ensuring every solution delivers measurable business value.

What You'Ll Do

As a Lead Backend Java Engineer, you will: Define and evolve the technical strategy for backend engineering across projects and teams. Lead the design and delivery of scalable, secure and resilient distributed systems using Java and the Spring ecosystem. Provide architectural leadership across multiple client engagements, ensuring consistency, maintainability and long-term scalability.

Act as the technical authority for backend engineering, supporting teams in solving complex engineering challenges. Establish and continually improve engineering standards, coding practices, testing strategies and development processes. Mentor Senior, Mid-level and Junior Engineers, building capability across the engineering function.

Drive technical planning, estimation and delivery, ensuring engineering excellence while balancing commercial objectives. Partner with Product, Delivery and Client stakeholders to align technology decisions with business outcomes. Champion AI and automation to improve productivity, engineering quality and client value.

Evaluate emerging technologies and shape engineering roadmaps that keep the organisation at the forefront of modern software development. What You'll Bring Technical Expertise You'll bring extensive commercial experience in: Modern Java (Java 8+) and advanced language features Spring Boot and the wider Spring ecosystem Spring Security, Spring Data JPA and Spring Cloud Designing and delivering RESTful APIs Microservices, event-driven architecture and distributed systems Relational and NoSQL databases Messaging platforms such as Kafka or RabbitMQ Docker and containerisation Kubernetes and cloud-native deployments Cloud platforms including AWS, Azure or GCP CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices Observability, monitoring and distributed tracing JVM performance tuning and concurrency Automated testing strategies across all testing layers Build tooling including Maven or Gradle Experience with reactive programming, WebFlux or platform engineering would be advantageous. What Success Looks Like Technical Leadership Define engineering standards that improve quality across multiple teams.