A major UK research institution is hiring a Lead Developer to design and deliver critical data infrastructure for a 10-year national programme digitising over 140 million natural science specimens across 90+ institutions.

Location: London (Hybrid) | Rate: £550–£800/day The Role

You’ll lead a small engineering team delivering core infrastructure for large-scale data mobilisation, integration, and publishing, including pipelines feeding into global biodiversity platforms like GBIF. The work includes a mix of in-house development and integration with procured cloud services (storage, compute) delivered via commercial partners.

Key Responsibilities

Lead technical design and architecture for national-scale data infrastructure.

Build and manage a team of developers to deliver robust, scalable services.

Develop backend systems and data pipelines to support mobilisation and access of scientific data from diverse sources.

Collaborate with suppliers and partners to ensure seamless integration with procured cloud infrastructure.

Work closely with product managers, scientists, and stakeholders to ensure technical delivery aligns with long-term goals.

Contribute to high-quality codebases across backend and frontend systems.

Tech Requirements

Strong Python backend development experience.

Solid JavaScript/TypeScript frontend experience.

Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases, event-driven systems, and cloud-native architecture.

Experience building and maintaining data pipelines and infrastructure for large or distributed systems.

Familiarity with data standards and APIs in scientific or public data domains is a plus.

Proven leadership in technical delivery and architecture design.

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