Engineering Technical Lead

Engineering Technical Lead

• locations
• Stratford (2 Redman Place)

• time type
• Full time

• posted on
• Posted Today

• time left to apply
• End Date: April 28, 2026 (14 days left to apply)

• job requisition id
• R033023

Award-winning and bold innovation. Modern Tech-Stack. Impacting the future.  

Engineering Technical Lead  

£72,000 - £77,000 (+ Benefits)

Grade: P3MP

Directorate: Chief Operating Office

Reports to: Head of Engineering

Contract: 12 month fixed-term contract

Hours: Full time 35 hours per week

Location: Stratford, London . Office-based with high flexibility (1-2 days per week in the office)

Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK to apply for this vacancy. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship. 

Closing date: 27 April 2026 23:55

This vacancy may close earlier if a high volume of applications is received or once a suitable candidate is found, therefore we strongly recommend that you apply early to avoid disappointment. If you require more time to apply as part of a reasonable adjustment, please contact recruitment@cancer.org.uk as soon as possible.

Recruitment process: Telephone interview and two competency-based interviews

Interview date: From the week commencing 20 April 2026. We will be shortlisting on a rolling basis, so please do not delay in applying

How do I apply? We operate an anonymised shortlisting process in our commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion. CVs are required for all applications; but we won’t be able to view them until we invite you for an interview. Instead, we ask you to fully complete the work history section of the online application form for us to be able to assess you quickly, fairly, and objectively.

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer.

We are professionals with purpose, beating cancer every day. But we need to go much further and much faster. That’s why we’re looking for someone talented, someone who wants to develop their skills, someone like you.

Cancer Research UK has an ambitious Engineering Strategy and modern Tech Stack with a complex hybrid (on-premise & multi-cloud) infrastructure underpinning an extensive technical estate. We’re looking for a Technical Lead to join our Scientific Research and Information (R&I) product portfolio to deliver technical solutions for our lifesaving researchers and clinicians.

The charity is the largest independent, non-commercial funder of cancer science worldwide, and is the only organisation globally that spans the full research lifecycle - from early discovery through to implementing new methods for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in clinical practice. Our R&I directorate brings together our scientists, clinicians, Cancer Research Horizons, Therapeutic Innovation, Centre of Drug Development (CDD), and a network of global partners to develop ground-breaking ideas, research, and treatments to bring about a world free from cancer.

As a Technical Lead, you’ll provide technical leadership across a cross‑disciplinary engineering department, shaping and delivering complex initiatives that support pioneering research. You’ll act as a technical translator and strategic enabler, bridging engineering, product teams, and scientific innovation to deliver solutions ranging from our About Cancer website through to AWS‑hosted data platforms and ETL pipelines that enable bioinformaticians and scientists to carry out drug discovery trials.

You’ll take ownership of the end‑to‑end quality and delivery of technical solutions, from early design through to go‑live. This includes overseeing technical implementation, managing low‑level design activities, and coordinating the engineering capabilities and resources required to turn ambitious ideas into robust, scalable solutions.

Your legacy by the end of this contract will be to have made a tangible impact by delivering engineering solutions that directly improve how our researchers and clinicians work, accelerating progress towards beating cancer. If you’re an experienced Technical Lead with a proven track record delivering complex solutions across a hybrid estate using AWS, Python, and ETL pipelines, we would love for you to join our mission.

What will I be doing?

• Being the technical lead for key initiatives across Cancer Research UK’s Scientific Research & Innovation (R&I) product portfolio by:

  • Acting as a technical authority and knowledge source for the wider team.

  • Providing mentorship to help others grow their technical capabilities.

  • Please note: This role does not include formal people‑management responsibilities and is focused on providing technical leadership, expertise, and strategic direction.

• Collaborating with Product and Project Managers, Architects, and product teams across disciplines to identify technical requirements.

• Holding technology partners to account with appropriate scrutiny through technical assurance.

• Transitioning high-level designs to delivery by collaborating closely with solution architects and supporting key transition activities.

• Documenting low-level designs in accordance with technical delivery standards.

• Contributing to test strategies and plans as determined by the project or initiative.

• Serving as the primary technical contact for scientific teams and stakeholders, translating research workflows and data requirements into scalable technical solutions.

• Designing and implementing complex cloud solutions for scientific workloads, staying current with research-focused services.

• Contributing to, and co-designing, solutions to support our Therapeutic Innovation team’s growing and changing data needs (e.g. data warehouse/data lake and ETL pipelines).

• Applying SRE and DevOps best practices, implementing automation and CI/CD pipelines to reduce toil and improve reliability.

• Challenging thinking through open discourse and clear outcomes.

• Collaborating with colleagues across Technology to identify and utilise key skills for tactical output.

What skills will I need?

• Experienced Engineering Lead with experience leading the delivery of technology solutions from design to go-live across disciplines, with an understanding of:

  • Cloud-native architecture and AWS services (e.g., Compute, Storage, development kits).

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Python, R, automation and CI/CD.

  • ETL pipelines.

  • Various SQL and noSQL databases, as well as messaging queues (such as SQS).

  • Linux/Unix environments (e.g., to manage files, navigate the command line, run system commands, and perform routine troubleshooting).

  • The software development lifecycle, methods (e.g., SCRUM, Kanban), and approaches (e.g., DevOps, and test and behaviour-driven development).

• Acted as a technical lead in a team, starting the development of new features or products from scratch, defining the overall solution, and reviewing more junior engineers’ work.

• Ability to write clean, readable, and properly tested code based on tried and tested design patterns, with a willingness to learn new languages, frameworks and tools.

• Experience running critical services in production and designing highly available, scalable and secure solutions.

• Has successfully built credible and collaborative internal and external stakeholder relationships with strong interpersonal, communication, influencing, and negotiating skills (including senior leadership).

• A proactive, solutions-focused approach to problem-solving, encouraging innovation, promoting best practices, and challenging conventional organisational approaches and thinking.

• A resilient and adaptable leader with experience driving change and motivating teams and stakeholders in navigating ambiguity and responding to evolving business needs.

• Experience working in scientific or research environments, with an understanding of scientific workflows, data requirements, and High‑Performance Computing (HPC) principles, would be advantageous but is not essential.

Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do.

Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination

Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism

Human: Act to have a positive impact on people

Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively

We’re looking for people who can believe in and embody these organisation values and can use them to drive forward progress against our mission to beat cancer.

If you’re interested in applying and excited about working with us but are unsure if you have the right skills and experience we’d still love to hear from you.

Internal eligibility criteria 

Internal candidates should ideally have completed their 6-month ‘getting started’ period before applying for other roles. You should also advise your current line manager at the point you make an internal application, or at the latest, at the point of being invited for an interview. 
 

All internal candidates applying for a secondment, must have:

• Completed their getting started period

• Discussed their intention to apply and gained approval to apply with their line manager

• Been in their substantive (home) role for at least 6 months (this is only applicable if you have previously been on secondment)

If you do not confirm that you meet these requirements, we will not be able to progress your application.

 
For information about internal learning and development at Cancer Research UK please visit Fuse. 

What will I gain?

We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals.

You can explore our benefits by visiting our careers web page.

Additional Information

For more information about working with us please visit our website or contact us at recruitment@cancer.org.uk.  

For more updates on our work and careers, follow us on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented.

We want to see every candidate performing at their best throughout the job application process, interview process and whilst at work. We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen. Please contact recruitment@cancer.org.uk or 020 3469 8400 as soon as possible. 

Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18, so that we can protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.