Web Engineering Lead

The Role

Here at Unite Group, the Web Engineering Lead owns the technical direction, engineering quality and operational health of Unite Students' Web Domain — the platform through which students discover, book and pay for their home with us.

This is a senior technical leadership role, accountable end to end for architecture, engineering standards, security, cost and live service. You'll lead through technical standards, patterns and influence, working across internal and partner squads and holding them to a consistent bar for quality. Managing our engineering partners is a key part of the role.

You'll join at an important point in our transformation. Following an independent assessment of the web estate, we have a funded, Board-backed programme to rebuild our trading platform as a headless, multi-brand architecture, supported by stronger engineering standards, release governance and a newly established Design Authority.

You'll play a visible role in that change — shaping the target architecture, raising engineering quality and ensuring the platform remains resilient through our most critical trading periods.

You'll own

• Our customer website, built with Next.js, and its supporting microservices

• Contentful, Algolia and the integration of web journeys with commerce, booking and account APIs

• The Web Domain's AWS environment, including cost, security and operational health

• CI/CD pipelines, quality gates and release processes

• Technical standards, patterns and engineering quality across the domain

You'll work closely with peer technology leads responsible for the underlying booking, pricing and account services, while retaining clear ownership of the Web Domain.

If you're motivated by making engineering measurably better and enjoy leading through influence, this is an opportunity to shape a critical technology platform at a significant point in its evolution.

What You'll Be Doing

• Lead the Web Domain — Own its technical direction, roadmap and representation across technology.

• Drive the platform rebuild — Lead the move to a scalable, shared, multi-brand trading platform.

• Raise engineering quality — Set standards, security and quality gates, and drive measurable improvement.

• Set one standard — Apply a consistent Definition of Done across internal and partner squads.

• Build a coherent codebase — Define engineering patterns, reusable components and best practice across teams.

• Own live service — Drive reliability, observability, incident management and continuous learning.

• Own AWS — Accountable for the domain's AWS environment, security, operational health and budget.

What We're Looking for in You

• You don't need every item below. If you bring a strong combination of these, we'd like to hear from you.

• Experience leading large-scale web platforms and significant architectural change.

• A track record of setting engineering standards and improving quality across multiple teams.

• Experience managing engineering partners and holding them to clear standards.

• Strong experience with JavaScript/TypeScript, Node.js, React/Next.js, APIs and AWS.

• Experience running live, customer-facing services, with a focus on reliability, security and cost.

• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools thoughtfully and responsibly.Strong communication and influencing skills across technical and senior stakeholders. 

What You'll Get in Return

• A discretionary annual bonus so you can share in the company's success
• 25 days' paid holiday and an annual holiday buying scheme, with 5 additional days awarded for long service
• A generous pension scheme – employer contributions between 5% and 11% depending on how much you save
• Various benefits to support your health and wellbeing including a Healthcare Cash Plan, an Employee Assistance Programme, a Wellbeing platform and a Gym benefit that you can share with your family and friends
• Enhanced Family Leave including 18 weeks full pay for birthing parents and 4 weeks for non-birthing parents
• Lots of other great benefits including an annual ShareSave scheme, Employee Life Assurance, a discounts portal and more!

About Unite Students

Founded in 1991, Unite Students is the UK`s largest provider of purpose-built student accommodation. You can find us in 23 leading university towns and cities, with over 70,000 students calling US home! We are driven by our values, culture, and a commitment to develop diverse and inclusive teams, filled with positive energy and new ideas.

Instinctive inclusion. We know that to create and maintain a happy healthy organisation, we have to work hard to ensure inclusion isn`t just what we do but who we are.

People make Unite Students. Employees, students, and neighbours all contribute to building environments where we can all thrive.

Room for Everyone

We`re proud to be an employer that embraces individuality, and we`re passionate about building inclusive teams. We focus on creating a collaborative culture where you can be you, where your voice is heard, and where you can truly belong. We take great pride in being rated Gold Investors in People and are constantly striving to provide the highest standard of learning and development opportunities and professional pathways for our people. Building a home for success, for both our employees and students, requires exceptional people with passion. Join us as we build better experiences for students that live with us.

We are US.