About The Role

Hippo is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of Public and Private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Lead Python Developer to join our Hippo Herd. We work at the intersection of strategy, design, and technology to solve complex problems and create lasting value. Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine impact.

As a Lead Python Developer, you will play an important role in making Hippo the best Consultancy out there. You will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team combining data, design, product, delivery, analysis and engineering to deliver bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society. We're confident in our abilities, authentic in our approach, and passionate about what we do.

Hippo’s Lead Python Developers are experts in their field. You will act as a Lead Consultant providing technical expertise in software engineering practices both internally and to our clients. You will be a leader of people and teams, managing projects, driving the team's technical deliverables, maintaining client relationships and be passionate about developing and upskilling others.

Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well-engineered systems beyond traditional boundaries that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Lead Python Developer will be a key player and implementer in this.

Please note we are looking for candidates who are looking for growth at the Lead level; therefore, the advertised salary band represents the entry point for this level, allowing for clear progression within the role, which we are very keen to support.

Your Role in Nutshell:

• Act as a technical SME within the squad to produce and ensure user-centred software is developed based on business requirements and following best practice.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues to explore, design and deliver solutions to client problems.
• Design and manage software development and deployment pipelines resolving issues and potential bottlenecks before they occur.
• Continuously review and prioritise the delivery team's workload and anticipate the need for realignment with evolving operational priorities.
• Be a strong communicator and presenter, presenting prototypes, solutions and progress to internal/external stakeholders in a clear concise manner.
• Build great relationships with your team and stakeholders, identifying and ensuring that challenges are overcome.
• Involved in the recruitment, on-boarding and line management of other engineers, and support other consultants in their professional development.
• Promote Hippo’s Engineering Herd externally (for example through writing Blogs, Workshops, Seminars or Conferences).

Skills and experience that you need

Essential Experience

• Excellent experience in Python.
• Experience leading a delivery team to deliver high quality, robust solutions.
• Expertise in coaching and guiding others on the best way to achieve an optimal solution.
• Excellent verbal/written communication skills, able to articulate in both technical/non-technical terms depending on audience.
• Expertise in the full development lifecycle delivering user-centred digital solutions.
• Advanced full stack developer skills using Python, HTML, CSS & JavaScript.
• JavaScript library and framework experience is preferable – Node, React, Angular.
• Containerisation expertise – Docker or Kubernetes or similar.
• Expert knowledge of Microservices design and architecture, including Restful API Services.
• Expertise working within agile methods and using techniques such as Scrum, Kanban and TDD.
• Skilled in designing and building native and web applications, across a variety of scales and platform environments.
• Expertise in Infrastructure As Code – Cloudformation, Terraform or ARM or similar.
• Expertise in public cloud (AWS or Azure) and DevOps.
• Mastery of CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, AWS CodeBuild, Azure DevOps and Atlassian.

Desirable Experience

• Previous experience of working on GOV/NHS projects is highly desirable.

What makes us great

What makes us GREAT?

Alongside working with some of the most talented people out there and on-top of a competitive salary, which we’re transparent about from the outset, you can also expect a range of benefits:

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo

At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We understand that having a diverse team unlocks our capacity for innovation, creativity and problem solving. Only by building a community of diverse perspectives, cultures and socio-economic backgrounds can we create an environment where all can contribute and thrive.

We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant. Hippo continually strives to remove barriers, provide accommodations and offer reasonable adjustments to ensure equity throughout our practices.

Hi, we’re Hippo

At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data-informed evidence, human-centred design and software engineering. We're a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes.

We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human-centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world.

Our combination of data, design, and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society.

Have a look through our Website at Our Story & Purpose, Our Culture & Values, Case Studies and Our Solutions & Services to find out some more!

Hippo Locations

We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We're on the lookout for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on-site at a Hippo office or at an in/out of town client location for a number of days per week (client dependent) and therefore candidates will need to be open/flexible to travel and working on one of those sites at least 2 days per week. We offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8,000 (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.