Lead Software Engineering

Are you an experienced software engineer or architect who wants to remain technically strong, but also enjoys bringing a team further?

At adesso Netherlands, we are looking for a Lead Software Engineering. Someone who brings technology, people, and delivery together. You are not only responsible for the development of your team, but you also remain close to the technical content and our customers.

You work with experienced software engineers on challenging customer environments and simultaneously help to further expand our Software Engineering practice. From Java and modern frontend technology to cloud, architecture, and agentic software engineering.

Not a role in which you will only be managing. You remain part of the craft.

As Lead Software Engineering, you lead a team of approximately 5 to 12 consultants and developers. You coach colleagues, help them grow, and ensure they are placed on projects that match their knowledge, experience, and development.

At the same time, you are involved with our customers and projects. You monitor the quality of delivery, contribute to thinking about architecture and engineering issues, and step in when a project requires extra attention technically or organizationally.

Your role roughly consists of four parts:

People & team
You conduct 1-on-1s, guide development and performance, and help colleagues with their next step. You ensure a good onboarding of new colleagues and are actively involved in recruitment and selection.

Software Engineering & delivery
You remain technically involved in software engineering and can personally take a leading role in a technical or architectural issue. You monitor quality, planning, and risks, and ensure that our teams deliver predictably and professionally.

At the same time, you help engineers develop towards Agentic Engineering: spending less time producing code and more on defining context, architecture, and quality, orchestrating agents, and reviewing and validating the output.

Customers & commerce
You see what is happening with customers and translate that into opportunities for adesso. You contribute to thinking in presales, proposals, and bids, and help shape solutions that are both technically and commercially sound. With existing customers, you recognize opportunities for follow-up projects and expansion.

In doing so, the focus is increasingly shifting from delivering capacity to realizing engineering outcomes: building faster, modernizing, and helping customers make their engineering organization future-proof.

Growth of our Software Engineering practice
You help determine which knowledge, technology, and capabilities we need as a team. You follow developments within, among others, Java, frontend, cloud, architecture, and Agentic Engineering, and translate these into our way of working.

With this, you not only help individual engineers grow, but also help build a scalable engineering capability within adesso.

We are not looking for a classic people manager who has since abandoned technology. We are specifically looking for someone who understands software engineering and can also lead people through the development of the craft.

You have extensive experience within software engineering and have, for example, worked as a Senior Software Engineer, Tech Lead, Lead Developer, or Software Architect. You have experience with Java and/or modern software architectures and understand what is required to successfully deliver complex software projects.

Additionally:

• you have approximately 7–8 years or more of relevant experience within software development and complex projects;

• you have experience in guiding, coaching, or managing other engineers;

• you can switch between developers, customers, and management;

• you understand topics such as delivery, capacity, quality, and project margin;

• you have experience within consultancy or project-based services, or you feel at home in such an environment;

• you find it interesting to help build propositions, presales, and customer relationships;

• you follow developments regarding AI, AI agents, and Agentic Engineering;

• you have a good command of the Dutch and English languages.

Certifications in the fields of Java, cloud, architecture, or software engineering are a plus, but for us, your experience and what you have actually built and led are more important.

This is a role for someone who has reached a point where building software alone is no longer enough, but who also does not want to sit in management meetings all day.

You will get the space to develop a team, have influence on our technical direction, sit at the table with customers, and personally remain technically relevant.

With approximately 100 colleagues, adesso Netherlands is compact enough to have real influence, while you are part of an international organization with more than 13,000 colleagues. Because of this, we combine short lines and entrepreneurship with the knowledge, customers, and opportunities of a large European IT organization.

And Software Engineering is changing fast. AI agents will increasingly support more parts of the software lifecycle, from requirements and architecture to development, testing, and delivery. As a result, the work of engineers is shifting towards defining context, architecture, and quality, and the orchestration, assessment, and adjustment of AI. 

Within adesso, we do not want to watch this from the sidelines. As Lead Software Engineering, you will help determine how we translate this development to our engineers, our projects, and our customers.

Ready to not only build good software, but also make the team around it stronger? Then we would love to meet you.