# Lead Engineer > Patchstack · United Kingdom (Remote) · Full-time · Posted 2026-05-12 **Salary:** EUR 75,000–100,000 **Workplace:** remote ## Description As a **Lead Engineer**, you'll lead a small squad (typically 3 engineers) to deliver a clear mission end-to-end: setting direction, making pragmatic technical decisions, and ensuring the team ships reliably. This is a **hands-on squad leadership role**: you will write code, review code, own architecture choices, and be accountable for outcomes. You'll partner closely with **Product (PM)** and **Design**, and coordinate where needed with **Security Research** and **Ops/Infra**. In our model, squads are built around missions — **Flow** (Industrialisation) and **Ecosystem** (Distribution), as described in the pipeline above. Your exact squad mission will be confirmed during hiring, but the leadership expectations are consistent across both. ### Tech stack - **Backend:** Laravel / PHP (primary), with supporting services and tooling - **Frontend:** Vue.js / Inertia.js, ShadCN - **Infrastructure:** AWS, Docker, GitHub Actions CI/CD - **Data & intelligence:** MySQL, automated vulnerability pipelines - **AI tooling:** Claude, MCP integrations, AI-assisted development workflows - **Practices:** ADRs, small PRs, trunk-based development, feature flags, observability-first ### Responsibilities ### Squad outcomes & delivery leadership - Own your squad's mission and delivery cadence: define milestones, ensure steady shipping, and remove blockers. - Translate high-level goals into a delivery plan: scope, sequencing, trade-offs, and risks. - Drive a high-quality execution loop: clear tickets/specs, small PRs, fast reviews, strong release habits. - Maintain a predictable operating rhythm: planning, weekly goals, retros, and continuous improvement. ### Technical direction & architecture - Make and communicate pragmatic architectural decisions, guided by our technical principles: **safe, reversible actions** over brittle one-way changes; **explainable decisions** over opaque scoring; and a **single intelligence loop**across multiple delivery surfaces. - Set standards for code quality, testing strategy, observability, and performance. - Use ADRs when decisions have long-term impact; ensure the "why" is documented and shared. - Own technical debt management: pay it down deliberately while maintaining delivery speed. - **Leverage AI tools and automation** to accelerate development, testing, and operational workflows — and set the standard for the squad. - Contribute to closing the **feedback loop**: ensuring production telemetry and partner signals flow back to inform research priorities and pipeline quality. ### Hands-on engineering - Build and maintain **Laravel-based services and web applications** (plus supporting tooling/services). - Ship secure, testable, performance-aware code; keep production stable. - Lead by example in **code reviews**, refactoring, and incident response when needed. - Experiment with new tools, frameworks, and AI-assisted development practices — validate what works and share learnings. ### Collaboration & cross-functional alignment - Partner with Product and Design to shape solutions early (not just implement tickets). - Coordinate with Security Research where domain knowledge is needed to ship correct intelligence flows and mitigation-related work. - Work with Ops/Infra on reliability, scaling, deployments, and platform evolution. ### People leadership (small-team, high impact) - Create clarity for your squad: who owns what, what "done" means, and how quality is measured. - Coach engineers through pairing, reviews, and feedback — raising the bar without creating bureaucracy. - Support hiring and onboarding when your squad grows. ## Requirements - **8+ years of software engineering experience**, with at least 2 years leading or owning delivery for a small team (formal title not required — real ownership is). - Strong backend/full-stack capability with **Laravel/PHP**, API design, and pragmatic system design. - Experience designing and operating **CI/CD pipelines**, testing strategies, and observability tooling. - High standards on **security, performance, and maintainability**. - Track record of shipping in short cycles with a strong quality bar (tests, reviews, CI/CD discipline). - **Comfort and curiosity with AI-assisted development** — you actively use tools like Cursor, Copilot, Claude, or similar to move faster. - Excellent written communication: you can document decisions, write clear specs, and align stakeholders asynchronously. - Comfort with ambiguity: you can define the path, not wait for perfect specs. - Interest in the **security domain** is a strong plus — you don't need to be a security researcher, but curiosity about vulnerabilities, threat intelligence, and the open-source ecosystem will help you thrive. You should care about building for **builders** — often non-technical people using no-code, low-code, or AI-assisted tools who need protection without needing to understand CVEs. - Experience in a **small, scaling company** (not just big-co) is a plus — you know how to build process without bureaucracy. ### Success in the first 90 days - You've established a clear squad delivery rhythm (planning, review, release). - You've shipped meaningful production outcomes aligned to the squad mission. - The codebase areas your squad touches are measurably healthier: clearer ownership, improved tests/observability, fewer recurring issues. - Stakeholders trust your squad's predictability and your decision-making. ### How we measure performance We measure through both **outcomes** and **behaviours**: - **Delivery health:** DORA metrics (lead time, deploy frequency, change failure rate, MTTR), cycle time, and PR throughput. - **Engineering quality:** test coverage on critical paths, architecture clarity, measurable reduction in recurring bugs and toil. - **Team impact:** peer feedback on clarity, collaboration, review quality, and evidence the squad is stronger because of your leadership. ## Benefits - **Competitive salary + meaningful ESOP** — we want you to have real skin in the game. - **4.5 day work week** \- we are big on work-life balance. - **Remote-first** — work from anywhere with reasonable overlap with EU timezones. - **Company provided laptop** - **High autonomy** — you'll own the mission, not just execute tickets. - **AI tooling budget** — we invest in tools that make engineers faster. - **A team that ships** — small, senior, no filler. Everyone here is a builder. - **38 days a year paid time off** (including public holidays) - **Co-working space membership** or WFH equipment for home-office - **Quarterly health benefits** allowance Note that outside Estonia all of our roles are contractor positions. ## Apply [Apply at Patchstack](https://apply.workable.com/patchstack/j/FDDEEBF3DE/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)