Technical Lead (IRC294813)

Job Description

• Strong commercial experience with Python and SQL in building scalable data or backend systems
• Solid experience with Google Cloud Platform
• Experience with data platforms (e.g., BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub)
• Experience designing and implementing data-intensive and distributed systems
• Experience with LLMs / Generative AI or modern AI frameworks
• Proven experience in a technical leadership role (Tech Lead / Architect), including system design, decision-making, and mentoring engineers
• Strong understanding of software architecture principles, best practices, and design patterns
• Experience with APIs, microservices, and modern backend development practices
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, testing strategies, and production-grade deployments
• Ability to work closely with stakeholders and translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Strong communication skills and ability to lead discussions with both technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to take ownership of technical direction and drive architectural decisions across teams

Highly desirable qualifications:

• Hands-on experience with MLOps practices and tools
• Familiarity with orchestration tools such as Airflow
• Experience working in enterprise environments with complex data ecosystems
• Exposure to frontend or full-stack development is a plus

Job Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and architecture of Python-based systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability
• Define and drive engineering best practices across the team, including code quality, testing, CI/CD, and deployment standards
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers, guiding implementation approaches, reviewing code, and supporting professional growth
• Own and contribute to the end-to-end delivery of data and backend solutions, from design through development, deployment, and ongoing optimisation
• Design and oversee data pipelines, integrations, and APIs, ensuring efficient and secure data flow across systems
• Ensure solutions are aligned with cloud-native principles, leveraging GCP services where appropriate
• Act as a key decision-maker on technology choices, architecture patterns, and trade-offs
• Drive long-term technical vision and roadmap, ensuring alignment with business goals and platform evolution

Hands-on responsibilities:

• Contribute to core system components and critical features when needed
• Implement and review robust, production-ready code
• Support integration and operationalisation of AI/ML components, ensuring they are scalable and maintainable in production environments
• Troubleshoot complex technical issues and provide guidance on resolution
• Collaborate closely with product, data, and business stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions
• Proactively identify technical risks, bottlenecks, and improvement opportunities, and drive initiatives to address them
• Ensure system observability, performance monitoring, and reliability standards are met
• Stay up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and AI/ML advancements, and evaluate their applicability to the project
• Promote knowledge sharing and continuous improvement within the team and wider engineering community

Department/Project Description

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced and passionate technical lead / architect to join our growing technology team within the WPP division, focusing on building technology products for world's leading media agencies. The successful candidate will work alongside developers and other members of the scrum teams. Our team consists of 100+ engineers, designers, data, and product people, working in small inter-disciplinary teams closely with creative agencies, media agencies, and with our customers.

WPP and all its affiliates embrace and celebrate diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are a worldwide media agency network that represents global clients. The more inclusive we are, the more great work we can create together.