React/Next.JS Technical Lead

+ 6 month initial contract

+ Fully remote

+ £500 to £535 per day - Inside IR35

+ Must be prepared to travel occasionlly to South Wales

Key Skills

+ Next.JS

+ Javascript

+ .Net

Role Overview We are looking to appoint a highly capable Software Engineering Team Lead with deep Front End engineering expertise to lead the design and implementation of a new, strategic customer-facing portal for Natural Resources Wales. The portal will integrate with an internal case management system and is being delivered as a bilingual digital service aligned with the GOV.UK Service Standard. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will combine technical delivery with team mentorship, solution design, and collaboration with architects, developers and client stakeholders. The role requires strong proficiency in React and ideally experience with Next.js and .NET Core. You will set technical direction, ensure code quality and accessibility, and help establish an engineering culture rooted in best practice and continuous improvement.

Key ResponsibilitiesDefine the technical approach for the Front End architecture and its integration with Back End systems, ensuring scalable and maintainable codebases. Work closely with solution architects, DevOps engineers, content designers and delivery leads to design and build a performant, secure and WCAG-compliant web application.

Hands-on Engineering: Lead by example through high-quality coding and peer collaboration. Contribute to core feature development using React and TypeScript, with a preference for Next.js and .NET Core stack. Participate in code reviews and mentor other developers, promoting best practice in test coverage, clean architecture, and agile principles.

Team Enablement and Collaboration: Foster a high-performing development team by supporting continuous learning, pairing and structured onboarding. Collaborate with the wider digital delivery team, ensuring alignment with Natural Resources Wales business objectives and user needs. Quality Assurance & Standards: Implement robust automated testing strategies, including unit, integration and end-to-end testing. Champion adherence to coding standards, accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), security best practices and Government Digital Service (GDS) guidelines. Oversee release readiness and code review processes using Git and associated CI/CD pipelines. Essential Skills and Experience Proven experience in a Team Lead or Tech Lead role, ideally within public sector or large-scale enterprise environments. Strong Front End development expertise using React and TypeScript. Experience building solutions using Next.js (preferred) and/or .NET Core. Solid grasp of component-based architecture, Client Server integration and Front End performance optimisation. Test-driven mindset with demonstrable experience in: Unit testing (eg Jest, XUnit) Integration and E2E testing (eg Cypress) Proficient in Git and working with version control in collaborative teams. Desirable Skills and Experience Experience using SQL databases (bonus if using Entity Framework Core).