hedgehog lab
Lead Python Engineer
How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Lead Python Engineer
Senior Lead Python Engineer (Agentic & Cloud-Native)
This is your chance to do great engineering work on something that matters.
As part of a UK’s leading procurement platform, you’ll be embedded into the product team and focus on the Python and agentic side of their platform that connects organisations with suppliers for high-traffic construction projects.
This is hands-on production work—not a greenfield build. Expect:
- Python services and AI-native features that drive core product functionality
- Cloud-native deployment on Azure for scalability and resilience
- Cross-stack interaction, particularly with PHP/Laravel, to ensure Python services integrate seamlessly
- Agentic engineering as a daily practice, leveraging tools to accelerate delivery—not as a novelty, but as a core part of how work gets done
About The Role
You’ll be joining a team that:
✔ Engineers at scale – working on high-traffic systems with serious scalability needs ✔ Ships agentic features – expect to implement and maintain integration workflows using emergent AI tools in real products ✔ Owns quality, architecture, and tech debt – moving faster and delivering better; growth and impact are your north stars
This isn’t a role for someone who needs every problem spelled out, but you also won’t be left alone to define the roadmap. Instead, you’ll work side-by-side with a technically strong product team, contributing to both what and how engineering happens.
You’ve mastered Python, production-grade cloud tech, front-end savviness, and interoperating with Laravel. Now you’re ready to solve modern problems in a live environment—your work will have measurable impact.
Reasons to use Rodeo
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
It searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Key Responsibilities
- Build Python services that integrate with core systems and AI features, including:
- Synchronous & asynchronous workflows
- Agentic systems that self-improve + generate more value over time
- Cloud-native architecture with Azure Kubernetes (AKS) and service fabric
- Work across stacks by fully understanding the interdependent system:
- Front-end (React.js) integration where needed
- Backend (PHP/Laravel) APIs & data flows
- Database optimisation of JSON/schema-heavy data for scalability
- Manage a diverse tech stack:
- Hands-on architecture & tooling decisions
- Proactive performance profiling & optimisation
- Collaboration on scalability & fault tolerance solutions
- Champion best practices in agentic engineering, MLOps, and DevOps rigor:
- Implementing production-grade ML workflows
- Defining clear SLIs, SLOs & principles for agentic systems
- Establishing guardrails for responsible automation
What We’re Looking For
To excel here, you should be:
- Senior/Lead Python engineer with 5+ years of commercial experience in production environments
- Hands-on with agentic systems – you’ve already shipped real features using AI agents (e.g., LLM-driven workflows, decision automation, or retrieval-augmented verbosity)
- Full-stack AWS/Azure pro with expertise in:
- Deployments (AKS, serverless - Azure Functions)
- Databases (/querying complex JSON structures) & caching
- Scalability, monitoring, and observability pipelines
- Working knowledge of PHP/Laravel – you know how to:
- Decouple microservices from Laravel-based monoliths
- Respectfully manipulate (read, modify, feed) existing Laravel structransients
- Ensure interoperability between Python & PHP ecosystems
- Front-end comfort because sometimes you need to write React or understand JS APIs to integrate Python’s output with the UI
- Mindset for impact: “I’d rather move faster and deliver better than fast or better”
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
The Perks
This job isn’t just about writing code. What you’ll get:
-
Work that scales. Building products that matter, every day.
-
Meaningful collaboration. A team who think things through, and debate the rigour and scaling together.
-
Flexible, varied experiences. Multiple clients, multiple contexts, evergreen surfacing of high-impact technical problems.
-
Luxury tech coverage:
- 28 days annual leave + Bank Holidays
- 5 paid Impact Days to learn, innovate, or volunteer
- Flexible working policies
- 2 days of paid wellness leave
- Annual Wellbeing Budget (2k/year)
- Company Mac +ounds of mental health support
-
Careers that matter. As you grow, you’ll move across different domains and challenges, keeping your work varied, engaging, and fulfilling.
Location & Practicalities
We need you to be based within 30 miles of one of:
- Edinburgh
- Newcastle
- Leeds
- Manchester
- London
Work runs remotely, in office, or a mix.
Sound Like You? Let’s Talk
Send us your CV so we can discuss if this role is a great fit for your engineering spirit.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills