Tech Lead; m​/f​/d - Copyright

Tech Lead (m/f/d) - Copyright - Remote or Hybrid

United Kingdom

ICE is a music technology company built by rights holders, for rights holders. We simplify the complexities of the music royalty chain through an innovative suite of licensing, processing, and copyright services, enabling our customers to accurately and efficiently compensate songwriters and composers for the use of their works.

Serving over 330,000 rights holders and leveraging a copyright database comprising 55 million musical works, ICE’s operations touch 250+ territories to distribute more than €1bn in royalties per year, with a total of over €5bn distributed to date.

As a Tech Lead, you are primarily responsible for the technical aspects of product development. You will mentor engineers, set technical standards, and make critical architectural decisions while remaining hands‑on (50%–80% of your time) on backlog and roadmap delivery. You’ll work closely with product managers, engineering managers, and cross‑functional teams to build scalable, reliable software and to create a culture of engineering excellence.

You will also act as the line manager for your team, owning goal setting, performance dialogs, and ongoing coaching to help individuals grow and succeed.

We’re building a strong new foundation for our company on these products. You will be part of a modern, product‑centric technology organisation where agile methodologies and principles are key pillars of our strategy. We’re creating the kind of teams talked about in Inspired by Marty Cagan, and following principles in Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren.

Our copyright product is primarily running in AWS with the following technologies:

- Java Springboot Microservices - Dynamo

DB - Open Search - Postgres - S3 - SNS - SQS - Docker / ECS - Open Tofu (Infrastructure as Code) - Serverless frameworks

Technical Leadership:
Provide mentorship, set standards, conduct code reviews, resolve complex technical issues, and foster innovation.

Delivery Accountability:
Own technical delivery outcomes, balancing scope, quality, and timelines.

Architecture & Design:
Collaborate on requirements, define specifications, design scalable systems, select technologies, and align decisions with product goals.

Coordination:
Drive cross‑functional integration, communication, dependency management, and knowledge sharing.

Line Management:
Own goal setting, performance dialogs, coaching, and development plans for the team.

Technical Evaluation:
Stay current with trends, assess feasibility, reduce technical debt, and optimise performance.

Dev Ops Ownership: “you build it, you run it” — own services end‑to‑end, ensure reliability and observability, lead incident management with business‑hours on‑call, and improve CI/CD, Open Tofu IaC, automation, security, and compliance.

Shared Responsibilities:
Partner with engineering management on engineering excellence, collaboration, planning and prioritisation, mentoring, and process improvement.

Experience:

7+ years of professional software engineering experience, including technical leadership and line management.

Technical Expertise:
Strong expertise in Java (or similar), modern web technologies, databases, and cloud platforms.

Architecture:
Proven ability to design and implement scalable, reliable systems.

Hands‑on Leadership:
Comfortable leading while remaining a significant individual contributor.

Collaboration & Communication:
Ability to partner with product, design, and business stakeholders and communicate clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences.

Quality & Delivery:
Strong commitment to code quality, testing, and delivery excellence.

Problem‑Solving:
Excellent analytical and problem‑solving skills for complex technical challenges.

• Competitive local benefits based on your location
• We promote flexible working regarding time and/or place
• Both mental and physical health initiatives
• Comprehensive training and development opportunities
• Industry insider events, team socials and company events
• Enhanced holiday allowance

We welcome candidates from all backgrounds, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and any other protected characteristic.

We are committed to making all stages of our recruitment process accessible to candidates with disabilities. Please speak to our recruitment team and we will work with you to make reasonable adjustments to ensure you can perform at your best throughout your application.