Lead Platform / Software Engineer

Lead Platform EngineerSearchability | London or Remote | Full-time, Permanent | Competitive Salary + EquityThe OpportunitySearchability is recruiting for an ambitious, fast-growing AI technology business looking for a Lead Platform Engineer to join its engineering team.This is a highly hands-on position working closely with the Head of Engineering, taking significant ownership across the technology stack and helping set the technical standard for the wider engineering team.Agentic AI is at the heart of the product and engineering environment. Engineers work extensively with Claude Code and AI agents, while the underlying platform is built around agentic pipelines.What You'll DoArchitect, design and build scalable backend systems and APIs from initial architecture through to production. Design and maintain microservice and event-driven architectures supporting real-time operational workflows. Lead a small engineering team, driving delivery, reviewing work and taking accountability for what ships. Set engineering standards around agentic AI, including Claude Code workflows and wider AI development practices. Contribute to technical strategy and major architecture decisions alongside the Head of Engineering. Build secure, performant and maintainable systems and reliable data pipelines. Work closely with the product to ensure technical solutions solve genuine customer problems.What We're Looking For5–8+ years' hands-on Software Engineering experience, ideally within AI, SaaS or automation. Strong degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics or a related discipline. Existing Lead Engineer experience, or someone operating close to Lead level with experience owning technical direction. Deep Node.js and NestJS expertise. Strong experience building RESTful APIs, microservices and scalable backend systems. Ideally experience with Next.js/frontend development. Genuine hands-on experience with LLMs and agentic AI systems. Experience understanding and solving the challenges that arise when agentic pipelines operate at scale. Regular experience using Claude Code or similar AI-assisted/agentic engineering workflows. Startup/scale-up experience or evidence of performing exceptionally within a high-quality engineering environment. Comfortable making technical decisions independently in a fast-moving environment. Able to lead and develop engineers while remaining highly hands-on technically. Technology StackNode.js | NestJS | Next.js | TypeScript | Microservices | REST APIs | Google Cloud | Kubernetes | PostgreSQL | MongoDB | Qdrant | LLMs | Agentic AI | Claude CodeThe backend is primarily NestJS, with Next.js on the frontend. The platform operates as a monorepo deployed into microservices, running on Google Cloud and Kubernetes, with PostgreSQL, MongoDB and Qdrant across the data layer. The EnvironmentThis isn't a pure management position. You'll be expected to remain one of the strongest hands-on engineers in the team while simultaneously providing technical leadership.The environment suits someone who enjoys ownership, autonomy, difficult engineering problems and building from scratch, rather than established corporate processes.PackagePermanent, full-time London or remote Competitive salary Equity Significant technical ownership from day one Opportunity to work closely with senior engineering leadership and the founding team Searchability is acting as a recruitment agency in relation to this vacancy.