Value Stream Engineering Lead

Location: London (Hybrid working, 3 office days per week)
Employment Type: Permanent, Full Time

Why Join Us?

• Annual bonus, cash car allowance and private medical insurance
• Lead engineering across a value stream building and evolving the next generation of digital products and services for The AA
• Stay genuinely hands on with architecture, code and complex technical problem solving while shaping engineering direction and standards
• Work within a modern, cloud native engineering environment where you can influence how scalable, resilient products are designed and delivered

For over a century, The AA has been keeping Britain moving. Today, millions of drivers trust us to be there when it matters most, and we're equally committed to supporting the people who make that possible. With a 4.5 star Glassdoor rating, we've built a culture where colleagues are empowered to grow, collaborate and make a real impact for our customers on every journey. This has been recognised by Sunday Times “Best Places to Work” for the last two years.

This is the Job

We’re continuing to invest in our digital products and engineering capability, building and evolving technology that delivers better experiences and outcomes for our customers. We’re looking for a Value Stream Engineering Lead who combines deep technical expertise with hands on engineering leadership and can play a key role in shaping how our products are designed, built and delivered.

Sitting at the heart of engineering delivery within a value stream, you’ll lead the development of scalable backend systems while remaining actively involved in architecture, design, coding and technical problem solving. Working closely with Product and Architecture, you’ll turn ideas into robust, production ready solutions while guiding engineering teams through complex technical decisions and delivery challenges.

Operating within a modern, cloud native environment, you’ll create the conditions for high performing engineering teams, raising technical capability and driving strong engineering standards while balancing delivery pace, quality, resilience and long term sustainability.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead engineering across the value stream, remaining hands on across architecture, coding, debugging and technical decision making to support the delivery of scalable backend services
• Provide technical leadership across Java and Spring Boot development, guiding engineers through architecture, design decisions, trade offs and complex implementation challenges
• Design and evolve event driven and distributed systems, ensuring solutions are resilient, scalable and aligned with modern engineering practices
• Coach and support engineers, actively unblocking complex technical issues and raising the overall engineering capability and quality of the team
• Own and drive engineering standards and best practices across code quality, testing strategy, CI/CD, observability, performance and system resilience
• Partner closely with Product and Architecture to shape solutions that are scalable, maintainable, commercially effective and aligned with long term technology strategy

What Do I Need?

You’ll Bring

• Deep hands on expertise in Java and Spring Boot, with a strong track record of designing, building and scaling backend systems and guiding teams through complex technical decisions and delivery challenges
• Strong experience designing and delivering event driven and distributed architectures, including asynchronous messaging, microservices and scalable backend platforms
• Proven hands on technical leadership, remaining comfortable contributing to architecture, code, debugging and complex problem solving while coaching engineers and unblocking technical challenges in real time
• Strong ownership of engineering standards and modern software engineering practices, including code quality, testing strategy, CI/CD, observability, performance, resilience and continuous improvement
• Experience designing and delivering within modern cloud environments such as AWS, Azure or GCP, with a strong understanding of DevOps, continuous delivery and building secure, scalable production services
• Strong collaboration and technical influencing skills, with the ability to partner effectively with Product, Architecture and Engineering to make pragmatic trade offs and deliver scalable, maintainable and commercially effective solutions

Belonging at The AA

At The AA, we value the unique perspectives, experiences and ideas that our people bring. We've nurtured a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and empowered to do their best work.

Through our employee communities and inclusion initiatives, we’ve created opportunities for people to connect, share experiences and influence positive change across the business. This is a place where your voice matters and where you can belong, grow and succeed.

Driven by People, Rewarded by Benefits

We believe in rewarding our people. That's why we offer a comprehensive benefits package including:

• 25 days' annual leave plus bank holidays, with the option to buy additional holiday
• Up to 7% employer pension contribution
• Free AA breakdown membership from Day One with 50% discount for family and friends, plus discounts on AA products including car and home insurance
• 24/7 GP access and wellbeing support for you and your family
• A wide range of employee discounts, including our popular car salary sacrifice scheme

#LI-HH
#LI-Hybrid