Lead Software Engineer Belfast Hybrid Hayward Hawk are currently recruiting for a Lead Software Engineer to join their global scaling client in Belfast. This is a fantastic opportunity to join an organisation who are market leaders in their field & a household name. They are scaling their Belfast team at present and this is the perfect time to get your foot in the door and grow with them. This role sits at the heart of the engineering team, driving platform scalability, release strategy, and architectural leadership for systems that underpin real-time data and settlement flows. You'll be working on high-throughput platforms designed for resilience, with an emphasis on quality, velocity, and technical innovation. The Role: Lead the technical delivery of fault-tolerant, cloud-native backend systems designed for extremely high transaction volumes and mission-critical operations. Translate complex business and operational requirements into scalable engineering strategies and design patterns. Partner with architects to evolve platform direction and ensure alignment with broader technology vision. Drive reliability, observability, and system performance improvements across the engineering stack. Use AI/ML and automation to increase productivity, streamline workflows, and improve developer experience across the SDLC. Coach and mentor engineers through hands-on support, pair programming, and leading technical deep-dives. Build and maintain strong cross-functional relationships with product, architecture, and operations teams. Contribute to internal frameworks, design standards, and thought leadership to uplift engineering capability across the organisation. Requirements: Proven experience leading the development of backend platforms at scale. Strong foundation in systems design, cloud-native architecture, and data consistency models. Deep expertise in Java (or similar), Spring, asynchronous messaging (Kafka or equivalent), containers, and distributed data stores (SQL/NoSQL). Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automation tooling, and cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS/Azure). Track record of solving complex engineering problems with creative thinking and modern tech approaches. Solid understanding of both legacy and modern architectural paradigms (monoliths, microservices, event-driven systems). Familiarity with AI/ML tools and their application in engineering automation or product development is a strong plus. Excellent communication and influencing skillsyou can articulate technical concepts to a broad audience. Skills: Java Spring