Technical Lead

Summary

Join OpenSesame's fully remote team in the United Kingdom as a Technical Lead, playing a key role in evolving their eLearning platform. You will work closely with teammates using Extreme Programming (XP) practices, contributing to both new feature development and improving existing code. As a Technical Lead, you will mentor engineers, foster collaboration, and contribute to a culture of quality and continuous learning. This role requires a blend of technical expertise and collaboration, enhancing team skills and acting as a connector across engineering teams. You will lead by example in XP practices while supporting the development of a strong engineering culture within a leaderful, remote-first team. The position involves working with a TypeScript, Node.js, and React stack.

Requirements

• This role is based in the United Kingdom
• We operate as a remote-first company and periodically host all-company meetings in person
• All positions require up to 15 days of travel per year, with senior management and leadership teams requiring up to 35 days

Responsibilities

• Get fully integrated into the team’s workflow, develop a deep understanding of the product and architecture, and start contributing to collaborative development processes
• Build relationships with engineers across OpenSesame, learn team workflows, and contribute with a focus on collective ownership of outcomes
• Pair and mob with team members to understand existing systems and contribute in maintaining and developing new features. Apply test-driven development (TDD) and CI/CD to improve feedback loops and to deliver high quality and maintainable solutions
• Start mentoring engineers, providing technical guidance, and fostering a culture of continuous learning through XP practices. Advise engineering managers on how to take advantage of team members’ strengths and how to address their weaknesses
• Engage fully in the team's agile ceremonies, retrospectives, and discussions. Help the team refine XP-based workflows, including improving test-driven development (TDD) and evolutionary design strategies
• Take on more leadership in technical decision-making, guide the team’s development practices, and ensure quality in both code and process
• Play a key role in shaping the technical direction of the team, ensuring architectural decisions balance scalability, maintainability, and simplicity
• Continue engaging in pair programming and mobbing to lead important initiatives while fostering strong collaboration across the organization
• Help the team break down complex work into vertical slices, ensuring incremental value delivery and fast feedback loops
• Develop team members’ ability to collectively own their work and an ability to work incrementally without your active involvement. Foster a culture of care around edge cases and quality work
• Mentor team members in improving build processes to achieve zero-friction local development and continuous integration. Develop expertise in James Shore’s "Testing Without Mocks" pattern language and begin mentoring others in applying it
• Foster a culture where each team member feels empowered to take initiative and contribute to the success of the team. Encourage shared responsibility for quality and maintainability
• Work with engineering leadership to define and implement long-term technical strategies that align with company goals. Lead initiatives that enhance the team’s ability to execute efficiently within the XP framework
• Act as a technical connector, helping align best practices in test-driven development (TDD), continuous deployment, and evolutionary design across engineering teams
• Work across the stack, contributing to both new feature development and improving the design and tests of existing code
• Mentor engineers, foster collaboration, and contribute to a culture of quality, continuous learning, and shared ownership
• Enhance team skills, mentor engineers, and act as a connector across engineering teams
• Lead by example in XP practices while supporting the development of a strong engineering culture within a leaderful, remote-first team

Benefits

At OpenSesame, we offer a comprehensive benefits package to employees upon hire, including ISOs, health insurance and paid time off