Technical Lead

About Us
The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide.
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About you
You are an experienced senior engineer and technical leader with a strong software engineering background and a track record of providing technical direction across business-critical products and platforms.
You combine deep technical expertise with pragmatic engineering judgement. You are comfortable navigating complex systems, shaping architecture, making and facilitating significant technical decisions, and helping engineering teams turn business requirements into secure, resilient and sustainable solutions.
You think beyond individual features and solutions to the long-term health of the technology: architecture, reliability, security, scalability, operability, developer experience, technical debt and the ability of teams to evolve their systems sustainably.
You are comfortable working with engineers, Product, Programme and business stakeholders, communicating complex technical considerations clearly and making thoughtful trade-offs between immediate delivery needs and longer-term technical investment.
You are also motivated by developing engineering capability. While this is not a people-management role, you will mentor engineers, encourage technical ownership, create opportunities for others to develop their expertise and help build a strong engineering culture based on learning, collaboration and constructive technical challenge.
About the team
Commercial Technology is part of the Internal Products group within FT Product & Technology. We are a multidisciplinary group of Engineers, Product Managers and Business Analysts responsible for building and operating the technology platforms that support the FT’s commercial capabilities across Marketing, Sales, Service and Commercial Data.
We are undertaking a significant evolution of our commercial technology landscape, bringing these capabilities together around a more connected Salesforce platform and establishing a strong foundation for how our commercial teams engage with customers and use data.
In Marketing & Commercial Data, we are evolving our marketing technology landscape towards Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next and Data 360, while continuing to operate and transition from established platforms including Bloomreach, Marketo and Legacy Salesforce Marketing Cloud products for B2B & B2C marketing.
In Sales & Service, we are consolidating several Salesforce CRM orgs with their associated processes and procedures into a leaner Commercial Technology estate, utilising data available to us via Data 360, into a setup that aligns with the FT’s future commercial capabilities and setup.
In Commercial Platform, we are establishing a centre of excellence at the heart of the commercial workflow, tasked with ensuring the security, health and viability of our day-to-day commercial operation and providing a primary support route for our business users
The Technical Lead will provide technical leadership for one of the engineering capabilities within Commercial Technology, working closely with the Engineering Manager, Product, engineers, other Technical Leads and the wider Commercial Technology leadership team.
What you’ll work on
As Technical Lead within Commercial Technology, you will provide technical leadership for the engineering capability responsible for the delivery, operation and continuous evolution of the FT’s Marketing & Commercial Data technology.
You will be accountable for the technical direction and engineering integrity of the capability, ensuring our technology is secure, resilient, scalable, maintainable and aligned with wider Commercial Technology and FT engineering standards. You will lead architectural thinking, guide significant technical decisions and ensure technical risks, dependencies and opportunities are understood and actively managed.
You will help lead the technical transformation of the FT’s commercial technology landscape, shaping the transition from our established marketing platforms towards Salesforce Marketing Cloud Next, Data 360 and the wider Commercial Technology ecosystem while ensuring our existing technology remains sustainable throughout that transition.
You will work in close partnership with the Engineering Manager – Marketing & Commercial Data. Together, you will provide the complementary people, delivery and technical leadership required to operate and evolve the capability successfully. The Engineering Manager is primarily accountable for people leadership, delivery, capacity and operational coordination, while you will be primarily accountable for technical direction, architecture, engineering standards and technical sustainability.
You will remain close to engineering delivery, working directly with engineers to solve complex technical problems, review and challenge approaches, improve engineering practices and create opportunities for engineers to develop greater technical ownership and expertise.
You will also work with the Principal Engineer, Principal Architect and other senior technical leaders on decisions that extend beyond your capability, ensuring local technical decisions contribute to a coherent and sustainable Commercial Technology landscape.
You will report to the Principal Engineer for the Commercial Technology domain.
Your responsibilities will include
Technical Direction & Architecture
Own the technical direction for the Marketing & Commercial Data capability, ensuring technology decisions align with the wider Commercial Technology strategy and FT engineering standards.
Lead architectural thinking and significant technical decisions across the capability, balancing immediate delivery needs with security, resilience, scalability, maintainability and long-term sustainability.
Establish and champion appropriate engineering standards, patterns and practices across the team.
Maintain visibility of architecture, technical debt, lifecycle risks, dependencies and emerging technology opportunities.
Work with the Principal Engineer, Principal Architect and other Technical Leads on decisions that span multiple capabilities, platforms or technology domains.
Identify opportunities to simplify, modernise and improve the technology landscape while avoiding unnecessary complexity and duplication.
Engineering Quality & Technical Leadership
Provide hands-on technical leadership and guidance to engineers while creating appropriate autonomy for individuals to make decisions and take ownership of the technology they work with.
Mentor engineers and technical specialists, helping them develop their technical expertise, engineering judgement and confidence in making technical decisions.
Support engineers through complex technical challenges without becoming the decision-maker or implementation owner for every issue.
Promote strong engineering practices including testing, automation, observability, security, documentation and sustainable software development.
Encourage constructive technical challenge, knowledge sharing and continuous learning across the team.
Work with the Engineering Manager to identify technical skills and capability gaps and help develop the engineering capabilities required for our future platform.
Delivery & Collaboration
Partner closely with the Engineering Manager – Marketing & Commercial Data to ensure technical strategy, people, delivery and operational priorities remain aligned.
Provide technical input into roadmaps, planning and prioritisation, ensuring delivery plans are technically achievable and account for complexity, dependencies, technical risk and longer-term investment.
Work with Product, Programme and business stakeholders to translate business requirements into appropriate technical approaches and clearly communicate technical considerations, trade-offs and opportunities.
Identify technical risks and dependencies early and work with the Engineering Manager and wider Commercial Technology leadership to ensure they are understood and appropriately managed.
Work closely with Technical Leads, Engineering Managers and engineers across Commercial Technology