Lead Java Full‑Stack Developer (Distributed Systems) - Sheffield
Location: Sheffield, UK
Working Pattern: Hybrid – 3 days per week onsite in Sheffield (non‑negotiable)
Experience Level: Senior / Lead (10+ years)
Role Type: Permanent
About the Role
This role sits within a large, complex technology organisation operating in the financial services sector. You will play a key part in designing and delivering highly scalable, resilient systems that support critical business functions.
We are seeking a highly experienced Java Full‑Stack Lead Developer with strong system architecture expertise. This is a hands‑on leadership position where you will own technical direction, drive architectural decisions, and lead a globally distributed engineering team — while remaining actively involved in development.
⚠️ Please note: This role requires on‑site attendance in Sheffield three days per week. This is a firm requirement and not open to remote or reduced‑attendance arrangements.
What You’ll Do
1. Lead the architecture and design of complex, high‑availability distributed systems
2. Make critical decisions on system design, technology selection, and architectural trade‑offs
3. Drive end‑to‑end development across backend and frontend, with hands‑on coding
4. Lead and coordinate engineers across multiple locations and time zones
5. Define and enforce engineering best practices, coding standards, and design principles
6. Conduct architecture reviews, design reviews, and code reviews
7. Optimise system performance, scalability, resilience, and reliability
8. Troubleshoot and resolve complex production and distributed system issues
9. Collaborate closely with product, design, and business stakeholders
Essential Skills & Experience
Architecture & System Design (Must Have)
10. Proven Experience designing large‑scale distributed systems
11. Strong expertise in:Microservices and event‑driven architecturesHigh‑concurrency and scalability patternsAPI design and service boundariesFault tolerance and resilience
12. Deep understanding of architectural trade‑offs ( consistency vs availability, latency vs throughput)
13. Experience with system decomposition and domain modelling
Backend
14. Expert‑level Java Experience (Java 8 / 11 / 17+)
15. Strong hands‑on Experience with Spring Boot and Spring Cloud
16. Deep understanding of RESTful APIs and microservices
17. Experience with ORM frameworks such as Hibernate and JPA
Frontend
18. Strong hands‑on Experience with at least one modern framework (React, Angular, or Vue)
19. Solid understanding of frontend architecture and state management
20. Ability to contribute to frontend architectural decisions, not just implementation
Data & Infrastructure
21. Strong Experience with relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL)
22. Experience with distributed caching ( Redis)
23. Experience with messaging platforms (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
24. Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines
Desirable Experience
25. Proven track record of leading large‑scale technical initiatives
26. Strong stakeholder engagement and cross‑team collaboration skills
Nice to Have (Strong Differentiators)
27. Cloud‑native architecture Experience (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
28. Experience designing multi‑region or global systems
29. Exposure to AI‑enabled systems ( LLMs, RAG, vector databases)
30. Experience with observability tooling (metrics, logging, distributed tracing)
Location
Sheffield, UK
Trading as TEKsystems. Allegis Group Limited, Maxis 2, Western Road, Bracknell, RG12 1RT, United Kingdom. No. 2876353. Allegis Group Limited operates as an Employment Business and Employment Agency as set out in the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003. TEKsystems is a company within the Allegis Group network of companies (collectively referred to as "Allegis Group"). Aerotek, Aston Carter, EASi, Talentis Solutions, TEKsystems, Stamford Consultants and The Stamford Group are Allegis Group brands.