Job Title: Technical Lead
Salary: £, - £,
Location: Cambridge/Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
The Tech Lead at Cambridge University Press and Assessment plays a pivotal role in delivering high-quality, scalable, and resilient applications that support the global spectrum of education needs. By providing technical leadership across the full technology stack, the Tech Lead ensures systems are designed for maintainability, extensibility, and long-term success, empowering teams to unlock potential, and deliver transformative solutions for learners, teachers, and researchers.
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
About the role
We're seeking a hands-on Tech Lead with strong leadership and collaboration skills to guide the migration of legacy -tier enterprise applications to scalable, cloud-native architectures on AWS, balancing technical innovation with effective stakeholder engagement. In this role, you will not only lead and mentor an agile, cross-functional engineering team, but also remain deeply involved in the technical delivery—applying your expertise directly to architect, code, and implement solutions. You will set technical standards, write and review code, and solve complex challenges alongside your team, ensuring resilient, high-performance systems that empower our global platforms and serve millions of users worldwide. This is an opportunity to establish the foundation for future innovation, including the adoption of event-driven architecture (EDA) and modern practices to support successful cloud migration, while building strong relationships across teams and stakeholders to drive alignment and adoption. We are looking for someone who leads by example, demonstrates recent hands-on experience with modern technologies, and is passionate about both technical excellence and team development.
Key Responsibilities
Shape Cloud-Native Architecture: Lead the migration of legacy applications to AWS, designing scalable, resilient architectures using approaches like microservices, serverless, and containerisation, while communicating design rationale to diverse stakeholders for buy-in and feedback.
Drive Observability: Implement robust observability frameworks to ensure system performance, reliability, and proactive issue resolution, fostering a team culture of shared accountability and continuous improvement.
Prepare for Event-Driven Architecture: Design systems with flexibility for EDA patterns, collaborating with cross-functional groups to identify opportunities for decoupled, scalable solutions.
Build Web-App Solutions: Develop responsive, high-performance web applications using modern frameworks integrated with cloud-native backends, adapting to user feedback and business priorities through iterative collaboration.
Optimise Cloud Deployments: Leverage cloud services and Infrastructure as Code to ensure cost-effective, scalable solutions, while mentoring teams on best practices and facilitating knowledge-sharing sessions.
Ensure Security and Compliance: Champion secure practices aligned with industry standards, influencing stakeholders to prioritize security in decision-making processes.
Lead Automation and CI/CD: Drive automation through CI/CD pipelines to accelerate delivery and minimise technical debt, promoting agile ways of working that encourage team input and adaptability.
Mentor and Collaborate: Guide engineers, foster a culture of learning and inclusivity, and collaborate with product teams, architects, and stakeholders to align technical solutions with business goals, using strong communication skills to bridge technical and non-technical perspectives.
Facilitate Stakeholder Engagement: Act as a key liaison in stakeholder groups, translating technical concepts into actionable insights, resolving conflicts, and building consensus to ensure project success
About you
As a hands-on Tech Lead, you'll bring broad expertise in cloud architecture and migration strategies, coupled with exceptional soft skills to thrive in collaborative environments. Your experience includes transforming legacy enterprise applications into modern, scalable solutions, with a focus on horizontal skills like problem-solving, adaptable design thinking, and leading through influence. You excel in agile, cross-functional teams, where your ability to communicate effectively, mentor diverse groups, and manage stakeholder expectations is as critical as your technical acumen. You will be expected to apply your technical skills directly—writing code, architecting systems, and solving complex technical challenges alongside your team.
Key soft and horizontal skills include:
Leadership and Mentoring: Proven track record of guiding teams, fostering collaboration, and promoting a growth mindset to unlock team potential.
Communication and Stakeholder Management: Skilled at articulating complex technical ideas to non-technical audiences, facilitating workshops, and building relationships to align on shared goals.
Adaptability and Collaboration: Thrive in dynamic settings, adapting to evolving priorities while collaborating across functions to drive innovation and resolve challenges.
Problem-Solving and Resilience: Approach issues with a holistic, user-centred mindset, balancing technical feasibility with business impact.
On the technical side, you'll have proficiency in areas like microservices, serverless, containerisation, and building web applications, with experience in observability, security standards, Infrastructure as Code, and CI/CD practices.
We value transferable skills over specific tool expertise, as technical depth can be developed through our supportive learning environment. Ideally, you're also keen to explore event-driven architecture (EDA) and Domain-Driven Design (DDD), with a background that equips you to address industry-specific challenges in education and publishing.
If you would like to know more about this opportunity and what will make you successful, please see the full job description attached to the bottom of this vacancy on our careers site.
Rewards and benefits
We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:
1. days annual leave plus bank holidays
2. Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
3. Discretionary annual bonus
4. Group personal pension scheme
5. Life assurance up to x annual salary
6. Green travel schemes
We are a hybrid working organisation, and we offer a range of flexible working options from day one. We expect most hybrid-working colleagues to spend -% of their time at their dedicated office or location. We will also consider other work arrangements if you wish to work more flexibly or require adjustments due to a disability.
Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.
We review applications on an ongoing basis, with a closing date for all applications being th January with interview taking place shortly after.
Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the website for guidance to understand the eligibility based on the role you are applying for.
Why join us
Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You'll belong to a collaborative team that's exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe – for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it's safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.
We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.
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