Technical Lead (Node.Js)

VML, part of WPP, is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and human first, award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, as a Leader among Marketing Creative and Content Service Providers, Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 26,000 talented people across 55+ markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com.

Highly skilled Technical Lead who will operate between a Backend Developer & a solution architect with hands on experience on Node.js / Typescript / familiarity with AWS deployments. This role focuses on providing technical leadership to the development team, ensuring adherence to design patterns, best coding practices, and guiding developers throughout the software development lifecycle. Unlike a traditional Solutions Architect role, this position does not require infrastructure-level architecture work but requires strong technical depth, solution understanding, and the ability to translate business requirements into high-quality technical execution.

• Lead and mentor backend and full-stack developers in day-to-day technical activities.
• Review code, enforce coding standards, and ensure adherence to design patterns (e.g., MVC, DDD, microservices best practices).
• Provide hands-on support for complex technical challenges, debugging, and architectural decisions within the application layer.
• Assist in breaking down complex requirements into clear, actionable development tasks.

• Translate business requirements into technical specifications in collaboration with Product Owners and Business Analysts.
• Design high-level application flows, data interactions, and integration approaches.
• Identify and recommend suitable libraries, frameworks, and tools aligned with best practices.
• Ensure that the technical design aligns with system longevity, scalability, and maintainability.

• Act as a bridge between developers, business analysts, and product teams.
• Ensure technical consistency across modules developed by different team members.
• Participate in sprint planning, refinement, and retrospectives to contribute technical insights.
• Coordinate development timelines and help unblock developers by providing technical clarity.

• Conduct peer reviews, provide constructive feedback, and ensure high-quality delivery.
• Promote best practices for performance, security, and maintainability in the codebase.
• Collaborate with QA teams to maintain robust testing strategies.

• Work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure technical feasibility of requirements.
• Present solution approaches and technical decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Maintain clear documentation of architecture decisions, design patterns, and technical standards.

• 5–10 years of hands-on experience in backend development (Node.js / Typescript / familiarity with AWS deployments).
• Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, design patterns, and clean code principles.
• Ability to write scalable, maintainable, and testable code.
• Experience designing application-level components, APIs, and data flows.
• Strong debugging skills and ability to analyze complex technical scenarios.
• Familiarity with microservices, REST APIs, message-driven architecture, and event-based systems.
• Experience with version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, and Agile methodologies.
• Excellent communication and coordination skills, with the ability to guide and influence development teams.

• Exposure to DevOps concepts (without requiring hands-on infra management).
• Experience in system integration patterns.
• Knowledge of cloud-native application development (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Ability to collaborate with UX, QA, and Product teams effectively.

Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

Our personality and behaviours: We believe that we are what we do, not just what we say. Our shared values and behaviours show how to bring the VML Enterprise Solution's culture to life through the actions we all take every day:

• Connect Meaningfully
• Inspire Creatively
• Include Purposefully
• Approach Positively

Our brilliant, talented people are what makes VML Enterprise Solutions what we are. That’s why we look for people who go beyond and always push our thinking to be better than yesterday.

Our Enterprise Solutions division houses strategic consultants, creative and technical architects and skilled developers and operators that together help some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver outstanding digital experiences across all major routes to market worldwide: marketplaces, online retailers, D2C, B2B and social platforms. With over 4,200 experts in 55 operational centres across 34 countries, our capabilities span the entire buying journey from customer acquisition, through engagement, to conversion and loyalty, driving multi-channel growth for world-leading brands.

We work with some of the most exciting brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, EY, Bosch, Unilever, Ford, DFS, Mercedes-Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Shell and Tiffany & Co. We’ve built over 500 platforms for brands and retailers and generate in excess of $29bn annually for our clients and work with over 50 strategic partners including Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, HCL, Shopify, Sitecore, BigCommerce, commerce tools and Acquia. Our reputation is based on our people, and we believe we have some of the best in the business.

As our business grows internationally, we’re looking for new people to join us on our journey to inspire and take a key role in shaping some of the best commerce solutions, services, and websites in the world. Working as a team, no problem is insurmountable; we share in our client’s successes and believe that anyone can show creative bravery no matter what their role is in the team.