
Sanderson Government and Defence
Lead Software Engineer - Cheltenham
Job Description
Salary: £100,000 - 100,000 per year
Requirements:- 5+ years of experience delivering production-grade cloud solutions
- Strong Java experience, with exposure to JVM languages such as Kotlin or Scala
- Experience with Kafka or similar messaging platforms
- Background in Agile DevSecOps environments and Zero Trust architectures
- Experience integrating with services such as PostgreSQL, Redis, and S3
- Solid engineering fundamentals, including clean code, testing, documentation, code reviews, and continuous delivery
- Comfortable using GitHub, GitLab, and Atlassian tools
- Strong TDD experience
- Hands-on experience with microservices and distributed systems
- Exposure to Big Data technologies
- Design, build, deploy, and improve backend services and platforms
- Deliver features that meet both functional and non-functional requirements
- Estimate and shape user stories as part of an Agile team
- Ship small, frequent releases to maintain momentum
- Work closely with other engineers in cross-functional teams
- Build, optimise, and run CI/CD pipelines
- Own and support the services our team delivers in production
- Atlassian
- Big Data
- Backend
- CI/CD
- Cloud
- DevSecOps
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Support
- JVM
- Java
- Kafka
- Kotlin
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
- Scala
- Security
- TDD
- microservices
- DevOps
More:
We are looking for an experienced Software Engineer to help build and scale secure backend platforms used by National Security and Defence customers. You will work on modern cloud-based systems using a mix of commercial and open-source technologies across private and public cloud environments. We value respect, equality, diversity, and inclusion, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. We are committed to supporting candidates through any needed adjustments during the recruitment process.
last updated 33 week of 2026
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About Sanderson Government and Defence

Sanderson Government and Defence
Cheltenham
IT
Skills & Technologies
Inferred from job description
Salary Insight
£100,000
This role
£85,000
UK median
This salary is 18% above the UK median for Lead roles (£85,000/yr).
Based on 2024–2025 UK technology sector benchmarks