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Legal & General

Lead Backend Engineer (Node or JVM)

On site

London, United kingdom

Senior

Full Time

21-11-2025

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Skills

Communication Leadership JavaScript TypeScript GraphQL CI/CD Docker Kubernetes Test Kanban Scrum Agile methodologies Coaching Effective Communication Architecture Application Architecture git react node.js AWS Agile Microservice JavaScript/TypeScript Spring CI/CD Pipelines

Job Specifications

Legal & General (L&G) is a leading UK financial services group and major global investor.

We’ve been safeguarding people’s financial futures since 1836, and strive to build a better society, while improving the lives of our customers and creating value for shareholders.

We are one of the world’s largest asset managers and provide powerful asset origination capabilities. Together, these underpin our retirement and protection solutions: we are an international player in pension risk transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income.

Who we are

Our Retail business supports customers throughout their lives, to help them save, plan, protect and enjoy retirement.

We’re a leading provider of retirement and protection solutions. We aim to support our c.12.8 million policyholders and workplace members throughout their lifelong financial journeys.

We focus on helping the customers of today and tomorrow achieve better long-term outcomes. We either talk with them directly or work with intermediaries and employers to meet their needs. We use the latest technology to connect with them quickly, efficiently and wherever possible in highly personalised ways.

Job Description

We are seeking a Lead Engineer to join our software delivery team as a principal contributor. In this role, you will leverage your technical expertise to guide and support a team of engineers, while also actively contributing to the team's development efforts.

You will play a key role in driving successful team outcomes, shaping strategic application design decisions, and identifying opportunities to standardise approaches across adjacent teams. Your leadership will help ensure the delivery of high-quality, high-value software to our customers.

What you'll be doing:

Leveraging and promoting technically optimal engineering practices across adjacent teams to drive efficient, high-quality outcomes for our customers
Advocating for and building elegant, scalable software solutions from complex requirements, while partnering with Solutions Architects to ensure alignment with business value, quality standards, and engineering best practices
Defining and guiding the strategy for managing technical debt to maintain secure, resilient, and reliable systems across Legal & General
Promoting a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging inspection and adaptation to enhance team effectiveness, productivity, and wellbeing
Fostering mutual respect and collaboration within the team by mentoring and supporting less experienced engineers, and facilitating smooth delivery through effective communication
Coaching the Developer Community to establish development standards that meet security, compliance, and audit requirements without compromising delivery speed
Ensuring all engineering work reflects Legal & General’s commitment to Customer Experience and Treating Customers Fairly principles

Qualifications

Who we're looking for:

Experience working as a backend developer on 1 or more large commercial projects (Node or JVM based frameworks)
Hands-on experience with JavaScript/TypeScript, including deep proficiency in React and REST-based microservice development using JVM Spring or Node.js
Solid understanding of mobile and backend application architecture patterns (e.g. MVP, MVVM, Flux, Hexagonal, Onion), clean code principles (e.g. SOLID), and scalable software design
Proven experience with test-driven development, testing strategies aligned with the testing pyramid, and a strong focus on security, usability, and accessibility
Familiarity with Agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban), Git/Git Flow, CI/CD pipelines, and containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes
Commercial experience with React or React Native, plus working knowledge of GraphQL, AWS services, and mobile performance optimisation
Understanding of web, API, and mobile security best practices, observability strategies, and the ability to identify and remediate security flaws in code and infrastructure
Demonstrated ability to mentor peers, facilitate technical workshops, drive alignment across teams, and contribute to process improvements with a strategic mindset
Skilled in diagnosing complex issues across services, applying root cause analysis techniques, and contributing to architectural evolution and operational excellence

Whatever your role, we reward performance and behaviour with a package that looks after all the things that are important to you. Here are some of the benefits we offer:

The opportunity to participate in our annual, performance -related bonus plan and valuable share schemes
Generous pension contribution
Life assurance
Healthcare Plan (permanent employees only)
At least 25 days holiday, plus public holidays, 26 days after 2 years’ service. There’s also the option to buy and sell holiday
Competitive family leave
Participate in our electric car scheme, which offers employees the option to hire a brand-new electric car through tax efficien

About the Company

Legal & General is a leading UK financial services group and major global investor. Our three divisions enable us to carefully invest capital over the long term in a responsible way that delivers returns to shareholders while doing good. Along with growing our pension risk transfer business, our strategy focuses on asset management as the cornerstone of our business, including by opening up private markets to more of our clients. Meanwhile, our retail business is focused on building lifelong relationships with customers as... Know more