Vacancy description
Key Information
- Division:Digital Technology
- Location:Wembley Stadium
- Vacancy Type:Full-time, Permanent
- Closing Date:24 August 2025
Have the digital world at your feet
As an Engineering Technical Lead at the FA, you will be responsible for leading the software engineers within your Pod (Team/Value stream). You will be key in ensuring your Pod builds the right thing in the right way. This is a technical leadership role responsible for the end-to-end development of a suite of FA applications. Working primarily within a Microsoft-based technology stack, the role serves as the central point for all development activities. Key responsibilities include establishing coding standards, implementing quality assurance processes, and overseeing the work of developers. The ideal candidate will wear multiple hats—acting as an architect, delivery manager, engineer, quality assurance, mentor, problem solver, and collaborative team member—ensuring both technical excellence and alignment with business goals.
What will you be doing?
- Collaborate with solution architects, application architects and data engineers to develop solutions meeting delivery goals.
- Identifying and capturing work that needs to be done, including dependencies external to the team.
- Responsible for onboarding new team members, and managing the impact of any leavers.
- Being across the health of the team. Is everyone contributing? Is everyone growing? Does the team operate in psychological safety?
- Lead and develop a high-performing, cross-functional team, fostering collaboration, shared success, and continuous growth through mentoring and coaching.
- Establish, uphold and champion team norms and engineering standards, promoting a culture of accountability and excellence.
- Contribute to technical discussions and architecture decisions, leveraging your software engineering expertise to guide quality and scalability.
- Support agile delivery practices and ceremonies, and continuous improvement through feedback and best practices.
- Enable robust DevOps practices, including CI/CD pipeline management and Kubernetes deployments.
- Promote a data-driven culture, helping the team define and track key performance and delivery metrics.
- Drive innovation and continuous improvement, encouraging experimentation and adapting processes to enhance efficiency.
- Collaborate with stakeholders to align on priorities, maintain a clear technical roadmap, and ensure transparency across technical and non-technical teams.
- Monitor and review changes to existing code base on a regular basis to ensure quality and robustness of software solutions ensuring compliance with FA development standards and processes.
- Optimise the developer experience to make the development process easier and help the team to become more productive.
- Ensure that production application services and applications are monitored and observed proactively – spotting potential issues early.
- Continuously stretch engineers with meaningful challenges and provide honest, constructive feedback to accelerate their development.
- Monitor and assess the capability and skill sets of developers within your team, highlighting any training and development requirements (both internal and external third-party developers).
- Assist Product Owners to break down requirements into specific programming tasks and provide estimates where required.
- Communicate delivery progress, timelines, and impact of changes clearly to Delivery Manager.
- Ensure the quality of the product is built into the whole development lifecycle, and not an afterthought for the QA engineers.
- Encourage the delivery team to adhere to agile development methodologies, practicing Test Driven Development, Behaviour Driven Development, and advocating paired programming.
- Ensure that user stories flow efficiently through the workflow and support the team in the identification and removal of impediments.
- Keep abreast of the latest developments in technology and demonstrate proactive engagement with developer communities.
- Actively contribute to the wider FA engineering community of practice.
- Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
What are we looking for?
Essential for the role:
TECHNICAL & EXPERIENCE
- Development experience using C# (.NET Core), ASP.NET, JavaScript, T-SQL.
- Experience designing, developing and maintaining MS SQL Server relational databases with change tracking / CDC.
- Experience with Dependency Injection & IoC frameworks.
- Experience with ORM Frameworks: Entity Framework, Dapper.
- Experience in building and consuming web services using micro-services architecture using REST APIs.
- Experience in keeping multiple applications in synch – real time/batch processing.
- Experience of leading teams of technical specialists through to successful delivery.
- Experience of providing technical leadership and oversight with offshore and/or third-party delivery teams.
- Experience with unit testing, TDD and BDD.
- Experience with working with SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and SCA (Software Composition Analysis) tools e.g. Sonar.
- Experience with design and development of n-tier architectures.
- Knowledge of common software design patterns.
- Working knowledge of Agile/Scrum.
DELIVERY PLANNING
- Experience of agile estimating techniques – from large initiatives to user stories.
- Working with delivery management and product disciplines to produce quarterly plans and longer-term roadmaps.
Beneficial to have:
- Technical educational background.
- Microsoft Software Development Certifications.
- Experience developing and supporting high-volume public-facing web applications.
- Experience of using Sitecore.
- Mobile apps development.
- Typescript, Angular, React/Vue frameworks.
- Message-based integration – Azure Service bus.
- Working with Azure Data Factory.
- Experience of working in a Sport related environment.
What's in it for you?
We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles, to achieve this we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.
We pride ourselves in offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:
- Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encouraging you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
- Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
- Free private medical cover.
- A contributory pension scheme.
- An additional 'Thank You' days leave, volunteering days as well as 25 days annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract.)
- A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.
For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers
Currently, we are working within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary. The contractual location of this role can be found on the FA Careers page.
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of the FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance
ABOUT US
The Football Association [The FA] is the not-for-profit governing body of football in England. It is responsible for promoting and developing every level of the game, from grassroots through to the professional game, and generates significant revenue to support investment into English football each year.
The FA oversees England international teams across men’s, women’s, youth and disability football, as well as running the National League System and FA Competitions including the Emirates FA Cup, and the Adobe Women’s FA Cup, and the world-class facilities of Wembley Stadium and St. George’s Park, all with a purpose to inspire positive change through football.
Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally. It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most. With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
Now is the time to inspire positive change.
We currently work within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary.
Your contract with The FA will specify a fixed location of Wembley Stadium or St. George’s Park unless the role is advertised as a homebased contract. The contractual location of this role can be found at the top of this advert on our FA vacancy page.
THE PROCESS
We believe that assessment and selection should be robust, fair, and inclusive.
Following receipt of your application and the closing of the application process, you can expect a period of circa two weeks for us to thoroughly screen and shortlist, ahead of any next stage and interview.
Please note, we receive a high volume of applications so this can vary but we ensure that our assessor panel reviews all applications, and no use of automated screening or AI is used.
At an interview, we want to ensure that we see the best of you as an individual and increase our understanding of your skills and experience relevant to the demands of the role. It is very much a two-way process with importance placed on the candidate experience so that regardless of outcome, you feel valued, and treated fairly and hopefully have a positive experience.
No process is ever the same, but we would like to create an environment that is welcoming and ensures the experience is as enjoyable as possible.
We tailor our assessment and selection depending on the nature and demands of the role. The FA Resourcing Team will provide you with as much notice as possible about the process and the format of any interview will always be communicated to you in advance, including what to expect on the day and who you will be seeing.
We often receive a high volume of applications, and for certain roles, we will supplement your application, utilising our on-demand video interviewing platform. On-demand video interviews enable you to answer preset questions, in the comfort of your own home or office setting and at a convenient time for you, giving us greater insight into you as an individual and the skills and experience you might bring to the role and working at The FA.
We also utilise Microsoft Teams for virtual interviews and of course host you at our world class venues, Wembley Stadium and our National Football Centre, St. George’s Park.
GROUP STRATEGY
WE HAVE MOVED FOOTBALL FORWARD.
From 2020 - 2024, we have – in collaboration with our key partners – been able to deliver meaningful change across the game.
From winning our first major tournament in over 50 years to delivering thousands of high-quality pitches to the grassroots game.
BUT WE CAN’T STOP NOW - AND WE WON’T.
This new strategy is about doubling down. Our game can tackle some of society’s core challenges. It can bring communities together, nationally and locally.
It can be a platform for inclusion, ensuring there is a place for all. It can get people active and promote wellbeing often at a time when we need it most.
With UEFA EURO 2028 – hosted in the UK and Ireland – on the horizon, we have an incredible opportunity to transform football across the country.
NOW IS THE TIME TO INSPIRE POSITIVE CHANGE.
Our ultimate purpose is to ‘Inspire positive change through football’ – everything we do ultimately ladders up to this end goal.
The 2024-2028 strategy focuses on tackling four long-term strategic challenges that will fulfil this purpose and drive real change across the game, our ‘Game Changer’ objectives.
Underpinning these Game Changers are then four activities and approaches that will enable us to meet challenges head on, our ‘Drivers’.
EDI STRATEGY
Our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy forms an integral part of our long-term commitment to using our influence across English football to create a game free from discrimination.
A GAME FREE FROM DISCRIMINATION
Our 2024 – 2028 strategy outlines three fundamental pillars for delivering a game free from discrimination – Boosting Representation, Driving Inclusion and Tackling Discrimination.
These pillars ensure that our work uniting communities, improving lives, and inspiring positive change on and off the pitch will remain a core priority for English football for years to come.
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The FA actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of The FA’s commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
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