Technical Lead - Backend; Java​/Boot; Mandarin-speaking

Technical Lead - Backend (Java / Spring Boot) (Mandarin-speaking)

Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, London

Create Future is fast becoming the UK’s most recognisable digital consultancy, with years of experience building digital products and services for major organisations whilst putting our people first. We have offices in the centre of Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, and London as well as remote employees located throughout the country.

We are a team of creators – code, project plans, go-to-market strategies, culture initiatives, marketing campaigns, large language models or people policies. Our clients include Pay Pal, Adidas, Nat West, Fan Duel, and Money Saving Expert.

Our reputation for delivering high‑quality, robust products has enabled us to scale to over 500 people. We have been recognised by Best Workplaces UK for multiple years in a row and our employee exit rate is low.

Join us on our journey… Let’s create something awesome, together, today.

This is a senior, hands‑on technical leadership role. You will be embedded in a team delivering for a client in a fast‑paced, product‑led environment, and you will be accountable for how your workstream is delivered, not just the code you write. You lead from the front: still close enough to the technology to make the call, and senior enough to own the outcome.

You set the technical direction, keep the delivery signal honest, and grow the engineers around you.

AI‑assisted development is core to how we build. We use modern AI coding agents to remove the drudgery so engineers can focus on high‑value decisions: architecture, trade‑offs, and the right thing built. Humans own every change, and quality is held by review and ownership. As a Tech Lead you will help raise the quality and consistency of how the team uses AI: knowing the domain and the codebase well enough to steer the tools, avoid reinventing what already exists, and articulate intent clearly.

• Java (with Spring Boot)
• RESTful Java APIs and Kafka/event‑driven services
• CI/CD pipelines
• AWS (S3, Lambda, ECS, EKS, MSK)
• Kubernetes and containerisation
• Infrastructure as code
• AI integrations and agentic development workflows
• Strong security practices
• Full Dev Ops ownership ("you build it, you run it")

Technical:

• Building Java services across REST APIs and Kafka/event‑driven pipelines, focusing on readable, maintainable, well‑tested code.
• Writing tests as part of development (TDD encouraged).
• Integrating with third‑party APIs (e.g., payment gateways).
• Defining and overseeing technical implementations, shaping how things are built.
• Championing AI‑assisted ways of working and lifting the bar on quality, consistency and reuse across the team.

Leading the workstream:

• Owning the workstream end‑to‑end, ensuring clarity on ownership, status, risks and decisions.
• Actively managing delivery dates, spotting risks early and driving them to resolution.
• Shaping and estimating upcoming work with product and delivery before it hits the team.
• Communicating proactively, keeping progress visible and feedback captured.
• Identifying and removing bottlenecks in delivery.
• Handling difficult client conversations professionally.
• Mentoring, pairing and coaching engineers to grow the team.

• You have strong Java and Spring Boot experience across REST APIs and event‑driven/Kafka systems.
• You care about engineering quality: code reviews, automated tests, maintainability.
• You lead openly, share knowledge, and raise the bar for the team.
• You are comfortable driving delivery and handling client conversations.
• You embrace AI‑assisted development, using modern AI tools to accelerate while owning quality.
• You thrive in a fast‑paced environment and bring structure to ambiguity.
• You are familiar with cloud services and CI/CD, or eager to learn.
• You want to solve real problems, not just build boilerplate APIs.

We offer:

• 35 days holiday (flexible bank holidays).
• Enhanced parental and adoption leave.
• Pension matched up to 5%.
• Hybrid flexible working, including remote options.
• Supportive, friendly culture with autonomy and clear career growth.

Candidates must be eligible to live and work in the UK.

We believe diverse teams build better workplaces and better products. We want Create Future to be a place where people feel able to be themselves and do their best work.