Development Team Lead (Ruby on Rails)

Development Team Lead (Ruby on Rails)

I’m working with a fast-growing, well-invested SaaS company that is looking for an Development Team Lead to join its product engineering team.

The company provides a global SaaS platform used by more than 65,000 people across the UK, Europe, the US and APAC, helping organisations manage information security, privacy and regulatory compliance.

This is a player-manager role focused on leading and developing a small engineering team while still remaining hands-on technically. You’ll work closely alongside an experienced Tech Lead who drives technical architecture and platform direction, while you focus on helping the team deliver effectively, grow professionally and operate at a high level.

The core product is a long-running Ruby on Rails platform with over 15 years of history. Some legacy patterns still exist, but the engineering team is actively modernising the platform in a pragmatic, sustainable way. They are looking for someone who enjoys building strong teams and engineering culture just as much as writing good software.

You’ll be joining a collaborative SME environment where engineering has genuine influence across the business and where leadership is expected to be practical, supportive and hands-on.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Leading, mentoring and supporting a small team of Ruby engineers
• Remaining hands-on with Ruby on Rails development where needed
• Working closely with the Tech Lead on delivery, planning and team direction
• Helping improve engineering processes, communication and team collaboration
• Supporting performance management, coaching and career development
• Contributing to architecture discussions and platform modernisation
• Helping the team work effectively with AI-assisted engineering tools
• Creating a positive, accountable and delivery-focused team culture

Tech Stack

The core stack includes Ruby on Rails, Ruby, MySQL, GitHub Actions, Cypress, Turbo, StimulusJS, Action Policy, RailsEventStore, DelayJob, New Relic, JIRA and Confluence.

The engineering roadmap includes moving ERB toward Phlex, Solr toward ElasticSearch or OpenSearch, improving component separation and continuing to modernise the platform in a pragmatic way.

AI in Engineering

The company is actively exploring how AI can improve engineering productivity, quality and workflow.

They are not looking for an AI specialist or machine learning engineer. They are looking for someone who is already using, or genuinely interested in using, tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex or similar in a thoughtful and practical way.

You should have strong judgement around where AI adds value, where engineering discipline still matters, and how to help teams adopt these tools sensibly.

What We’re Looking For

• Strong commercial Ruby on Rails experience
• Previous experience mentoring, leading or managing engineers
• Comfortable balancing people leadership with hands-on engineering
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills
• Experience working with mature or legacy codebases
• Ability to improve team processes and engineering culture
• Good understanding of delivery, prioritisation and team collaboration
• High emotional intelligence and a supportive leadership style
• Product awareness and pragmatic technical decision-making
• Positive attitude toward AI-assisted development and modern tooling

You do not need to come from a large enterprise background or have managed huge teams. This role would suit someone who enjoys helping engineers grow, improving team effectiveness and leading by example in a collaborative engineering environment.

Useful Experience

Any of the following would be beneficial, but not essential:

• Coaching or mentoring engineers
• Leading delivery within small product teams
• AI-assisted development workflows
• Agile delivery within SME SaaS businesses

Salary & Working Pattern

• Remote-first UK role
• Occasional company days in Brighton (Voluntary and Expensed)
• Full-time, permanent position

This is a great opportunity to join a growing SaaS business where you can have genuine influence on both the platform and the engineering team, helping shape how the company scales over the next few years.