Lead engineer jobs in Birmingham

Oak is a fully remote, mission-driven organisation offering high levels of flexibility, autonomy, and purpose. We’re a national not-for-profit organisation working in partnership with teachers to create high-quality, sequenced curriculum and lesson resources for pupils across all subjects and age groups.

Our culture has been independently recognised through:

• Flexa verified (93% overall score, including 95% for working hours and 97% for role modelling)

• Escape the City's Top 1% Employers – based on anonymous colleague reviews of culture, development, and impact

• Investors in People Gold - through external accreditation and colleague feedback

�� About the Role

Oak provides school teachers and pupils with the highest-quality curriculum and lesson resources across all subjects and age groups.

In this role, you will join our engineering leadership team to manage engineers across our product squads and platform teams, supporting them to thrive and grow. You will work closely with product and platform colleagues to enable effective delivery and continuous improvement, and you will contribute to hiring a diverse mix of permanent colleagues and freelancers to ensure we have the capability needed to deliver our ambitious goals.

Our engineers work in cross-functional product squads alongside designers, researchers, and education experts, regularly releasing new features and improvements that provide teachers and pupils with quick and easy access to high-quality learning resources.

�� What You’ll Be Doing

• Develop and manage a high-performing team 

• Lead the continuous improvement of software engineering practices and processes

• Working with product managers, manage the engineering backlog ensuring that important tasks are prioritised alongside bugs and product features

• Prioritise the hiring and retention of a diverse, engaged and collaborative team of engineers

• As a member of the Oak Team, contribute to the planning and culture of the organisation.

• Work in cross-functional and product-oriented squads with colleagues from across the organisation, as required.

• Deputise for the Head of Engineering and take on other general responsibilities as required.

�� What We’re Looking For

• 2+ years experience leading the continuous improvement of an engineering team’s processes and practices

• Experience of recruiting, developing and managing a high performing engineering team

• Substantial experience working in cross functional teams or squads

• Can demonstrate an understanding of how modern web applications work

• Extensive knowledge of the software product development lifecycle and how it influences the success of a product and a team

• You will be comfortable working at pace, with a range of digital systems (including proprietary ones as required) and you will continuously look at ways that the team can keep getting better. You will be excellent at working as part of a remote team, building relationships and managing your time effectively.

If this sounds like what you’d love to be doing, we can’t wait to hear from you. If you’re not sure that you exactly fit the above criteria, get in touch anyway. Ability and attitude are just as important as experience!

�� Our Benefits

• 25 days annual leave, plus one extra day for each year of service (up to 28)

• Additional Oak closure days over Christmas/New Year

• 11% employer pension contribution (with no minimum employee contribution)

• A 36-hour working week, with half-days on Fridays or every other Friday off

• Fully remote working — we’ll support your home set-up and offer coworking options if preferred

• Twice-yearly in-person offsites to collaborate, connect, and have fun

• A culture that genuinely supports flexibility, autonomy, and trust

�� Inclusion and Belonging

We believe diverse teams build better products. We warmly welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly those who are underrepresented in the tech and education sectors.

We use the Applied recruitment platform to help reduce bias in our hiring process.

�� Key Info

• Location: Remote, but you must be based in the UK with the legal right to work here

• Sponsorship: Unfortunately, we’re unable to offer visa sponsorship at this time

• Closing date: We’ll be reviewing applications as they come in and may close the role early

If this sounds like the kind of role and team where you could do your life’s best work, we’d love to hear from you.

Next steps

You’ll answer some questions related to your day-to-day job. Your answers will go through our sift process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised, and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers (real humans).

If you are shortlisted, we’ll invite you to the next stage, which will consist of a 1-hour Zoom interview to discuss your experience in the role.

We love giving feedback, so at the end of the application process, we'll share how well you performed.

We aim to begin interviews in late January/early February 2026.

We are receiving excellent responses to our job advertisements. This may lead us to close the role early, so if you are considering applying, then please get your application in early to avoid missing out.

We are an equal opportunities employer.

We are committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.

About the role

Alexandra Rose is a data rich organisation. Using Socialsuite, we have built sophisticated project performance dashboards and monitoring tools that underpin both our delivery and reporting. We have also strengthened how we evaluate and demonstrate the impact of our Rose Voucher projects, developing robust evaluation tools that help us understand, and evidence, how our work improves the diets, health and wellbeing of adults and children. 

We are looking for a proactive and impact driven Data and Insights Officer who shares our commitment to social justice, health equity and unlocking the power of data to influence food system change. This is a role for someone who thrives in a rapidly evolving data landscape, enjoys solving problems, and is excited about using data to drive service improvement, advocacy, and organisational growth.

You will play a pivotal role in strengthening Alexandra Rose’s use of data, ensuring our systems run smoothly, our insights are timely and actionable and our work continues to scale efficiently as our projects grow. You will support the measurement of our impact, improve how teams use data and help us tell compelling stories about how Rose Vouchers change lives.

You will be someone who:

• Enjoys working at the intersection of data, technology, and social change, and is energised by the pace of innovation in this space.

• Is adaptable and forward-looking, keeping on top of emerging tools, techniques, and technologies that could strengthen our work.

• Takes initiative, spots opportunities for improvement, and enjoys making data systems better for the teams who rely on them.

• Values collaboration and enjoys helping colleagues understand and use data confidently.

• Is committed to ethical, secure and compliant data handling, ensuring Alexandra Rose upholds the highest standards of GDPR and data-sharing practice.

Use of AI in applications 

We recognise that candidates may choose to use AI tools to support aspects of their application, such as grammar, formatting, or drafting. We understand that using AI tools in this way can help you express your strengths more clearly. However, your final submission must be a genuine, accurate reflection of your own skills, experience, and understanding of the role. 

To support integrity and transparency in our recruitment process, we ask that you include a brief note explaining where and how AI tools were used in your application. Applications that appear overly generic, inconsistent with interview performance, or rely heavily on generative AI without clear attribution may raise concerns during the selection process.

Additional information 

We want our organisation to reflect the diversity of the communities we work in, and we welcome applications from people from all backgrounds.

Socialsuite is managed by engineers in Australia. This will mean, on a number of occasions during the year, you may be required to attend meetings that start at 8am. This will be infrequent and most communication with the software providers can take place via email.

Location

London and the South East. Home working, with a requirement to regularly attend meetings and events (mainly London but on occasions project areas elsewhere in the UK) 

Duties and Person Specification

Data Analysis, Systems and Reporting

• Develop and maintain robust and accurate data systems and monitoring processes, ensuring compliant archiving to support data integrity.

• Lead the preparation, quality assurance and secure management of Alexandra Rose’s programme data, ensuring it is accurate, consistent and compliant with GDPR and data sharing requirements.

• Resolve data-related issues by collaborating with Socialsuite engineers and engaging with technical support partners as required.

• Develop and refine data dashboards, reports and performance insights that help teams, funders and partners understand how our projects are performing. 

• Share insights to support decision making, improve programme delivery, and strengthen Alexandra Rose’s evidence base.

• Support the implementation and day-to-day management of a new charity-wide CRM system, ensuring that teams can confidently and consistently use it to its full potential. 

• Contribute to the development of Alexandra Rose’s data, GDPR and digital capabilities by improving internal processes and supporting the data literacy of colleagues.

Impact and Evaluation

• Support the design, coordination and collection of baseline and follow-up evaluation activities, including surveys, interviews and focus groups. 

• Manage the collection, organisation and analysis of quantitative and qualitative evaluation data to generate clear, usable insights.

• Produce summaries, descriptive analysis and visual outputs to feed into evaluation findings and funder reports.

• Support the design, analysis and reporting of Alexandra Rose’s annual beneficiary survey, generating insights for advocacy and influencing.

Person Specification

Essential Qualifications and Skills 

• Demonstrable experience in data analysis within the charity, public health, or social care sectors (comparable private sector experience will also be considered). 

• Experience coordinating and collecting qualitative and quantitative data to inform research, projects or services. 

• Experience using CRM systems and data visualisation tools (e.g., Salesforce, Socialsuite) to support monitoring, reporting and organisational insight.

• Proven ability to handle and analyse large datasets, including creating clear charts, dashboards and performance outputs in Excel or similar tools.

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex data into clear, accessible insights for a range of audiences.

• Strong project management skills, with experience coordinating multiple streams of work and meeting deadlines.

• Excellent understanding of GDPR, data sharing, and secure data handling compliance.

Desirable Skills 

• Experience working with groups who may have time constraints or specific communication needs, such as families with young children or individuals for whom English is a second language.

• Experience producing insights for advocacy, influencing or public facing campaigns.

• Background in public health, social care, or nutrition.