Senior Technical Consultant

Hie is a technical consultancy that designs, builds and manages the backend systems our customers depend on.

Our work spans cloud platforms, databases, data engineering, backend software, automation, performance and reliability. We do not produce designs and throw them over the wall to a separate delivery team. The people who recommend a solution help build it, manage it and remain accountable for the outcome.

We are early in our journey as a company, but not in our careers. Hie is built by people who have designed, delivered and run systems like these before.

We are looking for an experienced technical consultant who can contribute immediately, help shape the company and lead the design and delivery of new systems and major improvements.

The opportunity

You should be able to hear a problem, understand what the customer is really trying to achieve and present sensible options.

That might mean:

You must be able to explain the costs, risks and compromises of each option without defaulting to whatever a vendor would prefer to sell.

The right answer should be simple, reliable, maintainable and cost-effective. It should suit the customer and the people who will be responsible for it afterwards.

Your work could include:

We work across technical boundaries. You may have exceptional depth in one area, but you must be willing to follow a problem into cloud, software, data, databases or infrastructure when that is where the answer lies.

Much of our current work involves C#, Azure, SQL Server and dbt, alongside other technologies where they fit the problem. Real experience in these areas is useful, but we care more about judgement than any particular tool.

Experience that AI cannot provide

AI can accelerate research, development and routine work, but it has no real experience and often produces convincing rubbish.

We need someone who has been there and done it. Someone who has made difficult decisions, seen systems fail, understood why they failed and improved their judgement as a result.

You should know the difference between something that works in a demonstration and something that will remain secure, reliable and maintainable in production.

We use AI extensively, but we expect senior people to challenge its output, identify outdated assumptions and recognise when it is solving the wrong problem.

Opinionated, without the ego

We want an opinionated expert.

Your opinions should be based on experience, evidence and a clear understanding of the customer’s needs. You should be able to defend your approach, but also have it questioned without becoming defensive.

We do not expect you to know everything. We do expect you to say when you do not know, involve the right people and find out properly.

Pretending to have an answer, hiding uncertainty behind jargon or continuing with a weak approach because it was your idea will not work here.

We challenge decisions because the outcome matters, not because we are trying to win an argument.

We want a robust, collaborative team where experienced people improve each other’s thinking and support each other when the work is difficult.

A technical career built for the future

Technology roles are changing quickly. Routine delivery will increasingly be automated, making genuine experience, technical judgement and the ability to understand complete systems more valuable.

We actively use recent technology and platform capabilities where they improve the result. We are not interested in deploying modern products using outdated designs simply because that is how the industry has always done it.

In a focused, growing team, your contribution is visible. You will help shape our technical direction, internal software, customer services and ways of working as Hie grows.

Responsibility, influence and salary grow with the impact you have, not your title, qualifications or time served.

Trust and autonomy

We give senior people considerable autonomy and trust.

You will be expected to manage your time, meet agreed commitments and create clarity for the people working with you. Autonomy does not mean disappearing into your own work or only sharing information once a decision has been made.

You should know when to investigate independently, when to ask for another opinion and when a decision needs to be made as a team.

We work together in our Harrogate office for roughly three days each week. Hybrid working gives people flexibility, but being in the same room matters when designing systems, developing others and solving difficult problems.

Reliability without constant firefighting

We respect people’s time and invest heavily in good design, observability, automation and continuous improvement so avoidable incidents do not become normal.

Our customers operate around the clock, but out-of-hours involvement is limited to genuine P1 incidents and organised by squad. When one happens, the people best equipped to resolve it work together, gather the evidence and make sure the same problem is less likely to happen again.

We run weekly drills so everyone understands how to respond and senior people can help build confidence across the team.

The aim is not to create heroes who repeatedly work through the night. It is to build systems and teams that rarely need them.

Who will do well here

This role will suit someone who:

It will not suit someone who wants to produce recommendations, pass delivery elsewhere and move on. It will also not suit someone who relies on authority, jargon or job title when their approach is questioned.

What you need

We do not provide visa sponsorship.

How to apply

Alongside your CV, we'll ask you a few questions about how you think and work.

Please write the answers yourself. We want to understand your judgement and experience, not how polished an AI tool can make your application.