Technical Lead, Developer Experience

Job description

Our everyday digital experiences are in the midst of a realtime revolution. Whether chatting alongside a livestreaming event, receiving realtime financial information, or working with colleagues in an online collaborative environment - consumers simply expect realtime digital experiences as standard. At Ably we’re not just witnessing this revolution, we’re powering it - at scale.

At the heart of our mission lies a commitment to putting developers first. Ably provides a suite of products to build, extend, and deliver powerful digital experiences in realtime, delivering billions of messages for millions of devices every day and supporting organizations like Harness, EA, Panasonic and HubSpot.

Working at Ably means helping to build the infrastructure and technology that will power and shape the future of the internet. The opportunity in front of us is immense. And we’d like your help.

About this role

As the Technical Lead for Developer Experience at Ably you will co-own the DevEx vision and strategy, transforming our dashboard, documentation platform, and control plane into a world-class experience. You are a senior, hands-on engineer who’s passionate about building for developers like yourself; someone who’ll obsess over the developer journey and elevate the user experience of the Ably platform.

You’ll blend deep full-stack expertise with a strong product and lead a team of five engineers where the feedback loop is immediate, because you and your team are the target users of the very ecosystem you are building.

Day to day you will

• Lead technical execution and vision. You’ll lead a team of five engineers building customer-facing web applications. You’ll partner with the DevEx PM as a unified leadership team, co-owning the delivery of a developer experience that becomes a reference point for the industry.
• Drive a product-first engineering culture. You’ll foster an environment where engineers are themselves principal stakeholders of product features, and obsess over customer outcomes. You’ll challenge the “feature factory” mentality and build a team that takes true ownership of the product.
• Be the technical authority. You’ll own the technical architecture and design decisions for our dashboard, docs platform, marketing website, and billing UI. You will ensure these applications effectively demonstrate Ably’s realtime capabilities.
• Thrive in a rapid iteration environment. You’ll operate in a high-velocity workspace where PMs, customers, and engineers co-create features. You’ll lead the team in working full-stack to iterate, improve, and ship improvements quickly.
• Champion AI-assisted development. You’ll be a catalyst for AI adoption across the team. You’ll leverage LLMs and AI tools to accelerate velocity without compromising on engineering integrity.
• Guide engineering outcomes and quality. You’ll set and enforce high standards for code review, testing, and production readiness. You will participate in incident response and coordinate with the Infrastructure team on platform dependencies and deployments.
• Mentor and grow the team. You’ll manage performance, career development, and hiring. You will hold the team accountable for delivery commitments while providing the mentorship needed to turn engineers into product-minded leaders.

We’d love to talk if you have

• Extensive experience leading technical teams in technical B2B SaaS or API-first products, with a track record of product-minded engineering teams that take initiative and ownership of product outcomes.
• A strong software engineering background with expertise in React, TypeScript, and modern JavaScript, alongside backend experience in Ruby on Rails or Node.js. You have a proven track record building and shipping customer-facing web applications at scale and you must be able to write code and build prototypes that use our APIs.
• You have a natural empathy and instinct for what developer customers want because you are the target user. You are genuinely excited about building developer tools and can tap into immediate feedback loops. You understand API design, documentation, and the nuances that differentiate a great developer journey.
• You act as an AI champion and are enthusiastic about using LLMs and AI tools as productivity multipliers for the team. You see AI as an enabler for higher velocity and output, not a replacement for engineering judgment.
• Experience at a startup or growth-stage company or adaptability to thrive in a fast-paced, agile environment with a focus on rapid iteration. To be effective in this role you’ll need excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Bonus points if you have

• Experience delivering solutions used by developers (developer tools or APIs), or closely related solutions for other technical personas (e.g. DevOps, cloud infrastructure etc.).
• An understanding of pub/sub and familiarity with distributed systems and event based architectures.

What’s it like to work at Ably?

We’re tackling planet-scale problems and our ambitions are a testament to that. You’ll join a successful, deeply motivated and collaborative team that thrives on innovation, experimentation and autonomy. To get a sense of life at Ably, visit our careers page. You can also read about the origins of Ably’s core values on our blog.

We believe in fostering a culture that’s built on inclusivity and mutual respect among all team members, and we recognise that each individual is different and will want to be supported in their role in different ways. We provide a range of perks and benefits to aid folks’ development and wellbeing, allowing them to be their best selves and do great work.

• A remote-first and flexible work environment. UK-based teams come together in person once per month in our London hub (next to Old Street) and we get together as a company twice per year. Aside from that, you’re welcome to work wherever suits best for you.
• Equity. We’re a growing start-up and we want all team to members to share in the success of the company through our EMI share options programme.
• Enhanced holiday allowance. Our policy provides Ablyans with 28 days of paid annual leave (27 regular days, plus a day off to enjoy your birthday).
• Enhanced parental leave package, so that you can take the time you need to get to know your new family member, rest and recover.
• Home workstation budget of £500 on joining (and £150 p/a thereafter), so that your home office is set up to serve you well and that you have everything you need to work comfortably.
• Personal learning and development budget of £1000 annually, and 5% L&D time during working hours to focus on improving your skillset.
• Private healthcare with BUPA.
• Medical cash plan to cover a range medical and dental costs.
• Mental wellbeing coaching and counselling from Self Space.
• Monthly wellbeing budget via Juno.
• Life assurance and income protection.
• Access to Tech & Cycle to Work schemes.
• Weekly snack allowance for our end-of-week “Need To Know” meeting.
• A fully-paid one-month sabbatical after five years with Ably.

Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Ably

We believe our differences as individuals is what makes us great. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we encourage everyone to be their most authentic self at Ably: we see inclusivity and openness as fundamental to creating long-term success as an organization. We encourage applications from all backgrounds regardless of age, disability, gender, sexual orientation, parental status, race, religion, educational background or neurodiversity. Ably has an amazing opportunity ahead of us, and we want anyone to be able to contribute to that opportunity.

If you enjoy working as part of a technology company, value open source, and love solving hard problems - then we’d love to hear from you, regardless of whether you fit the job description exactly or not. If in doubt, drop us an email; we’d be more than happy to give you some advice on your application.