We’re looking for a Tech Lead to join our team to help shape the future of the Yoto Player experience – leading the technical direction across our stack, mentoring a cross-functional team, and ensuring we deliver reliable, joyful, and high-quality features that families love.

About Yoto

Yoto is a screen-free interactive audio platform for kids. We make carefully connected audio players that kids control, with no microphones, cameras or ads. We have a catalogue of audio that inspires creative play and learning with 1,000+ titles in our card store from top creators, publishers and labels - think Disney, Marvel, Roald Dahl and Universal Music. We also create Yoto Originals like this one.

• Voted the 14th fastest-growing private software technology company in Britain in The Sunday Times 100 Tech 2025; and named the 94th fastest-growing company in Europe in the prestigious FT1000.
• Ranked 9th in Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in 2024; and featured in the Sifted 100 fastest-growing startups across the UK&I by revenue growth.
• Featured in Bloomberg’s 25 UK startups to watch in 2023; and ranked second fastest growing tech company in the UK in the Deloitte Fast50.
• Named one of TIME Magazine’s Top 100 Inventions of 2020.
• We’re 200 employees spread across the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Singapore, the Netherlands, Romania and China.. and growing!

We’re on a mission to be the soundtrack of childhood, and help families on their own unique adventures. By creating products that inspire independent play, we help families discover and grow with an inspiring world of audio - and we would like you to help us achieve it!

Yoto’s Engineering Team

At Yoto, our Engineering organisation is structured into mission-driven clusters, each made up of cross-functional teams that include engineering, product, design, and other key disciplines. These clusters focus on different areas of our platform and products to help us move faster, stay aligned, and build with purpose.

The Player Experience team, under the Player cluster, is focused on features that shape the user experience on the player — covering OS quality, content downloads, apps on the device, device settings and setup, new OS features, and routines. PLEX owns the quality of these user-facing experiences, ensuring they work reliably and feel polished.

What you’ll be doing:

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across the full Yoto stack – from firmware to backend to mobile – guiding decisions and setting long-term direction
  
• Collaborate closely with Product, Design, and Hardware teams to deliver reliable, delightful experiences across Yoto Players, apps, and cloud services
  
• Drive performance, scalability, and stability across multiple generations of hardware and supporting infrastructure
  
• Prioritise quality and a healthy codebase – balancing bug fixing and technical debt alongside feature development with the support of the PM
  
• Make sound technical decisions and foster team-wide consensus, enabling confident, aligned delivery
  
• Promote an environment that delivers regular, high-quality firmware releases that add customer value
  
• Work with the Yoto OS team to define and maintain a clear boundary between low-level services and player experience features
  
• Lead and mentor a cross-functional team of engineers, fostering a collaborative, high-performing environment with clear goals and accountability
  
• Champion engineering best practices, participate in technical reviews, and support delivery of large, strategic projects
  
• Roll up your sleeves to write code, troubleshoot complex issues, and lead by example in technical execution
  
• Implement strong operational processes, such as incident management and uptime monitoring, to support growth at scale
  
• Contribute to hiring and onboarding, and support ongoing development through coaching and feedback
  

What you’ll bring:

• Broad technical leadership experience across embedded systems, backend services, and mobile applications
  
• A strong understanding of how firmware fits into a wider platform – and how to keep it lightweight, maintainable, and scalable
  
• A commitment to maintaining a healthy codebase – with a pragmatic approach to balancing technical debt, bug fixing, and feature work
  
• Proven ability to lead and grow engineers across cross-functional teams, bringing clarity and focus to complex technical challenges
  
• Solid understanding of audio systems, Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connectivity, and systems-level optimisation
  
• Skilled at aligning teams around technical direction, encouraging consensus, and translating strategy into focused execution
  
• Hands-on approach to mentoring, debugging, and contributing directly to the codebase when needed
  
• Experience fostering a culture of regular, high-quality releases that deliver meaningful customer value
  
• Strong collaboration skills – especially in remote and async environments – with the ability to work closely with product and platform teams
  
• Experience driving operational excellence through tooling, monitoring, and incident response practices
  
• Nice to have: Experience in consumer electronics, IoT platforms, or building child-focused tech
  

Salary: £95,000 - £105,000 based on experience

What you can expect from Yoto:

• Flexibility: Hybrid working - expectation of 1 day a week on average in our London office, but you are welcome to come in more than this. How you meet the minimum expectation is up to you, to ensure you're happy and productive in your role whilst also getting that vital face time with your colleagues. Take advantage of our ‘work from anywhere’ policy to work from a different location for up to 6 weeks every year. Summer Hours policy to use between the months of June and August.
• Financial: Generous share option programme so you’ll be invested in Yoto’s success. Receive Income Protection, covering long term sickness for up to 2 years and company sick pay that increases with length of service. Life Assurance cover from day one of your service. Workplace Pension offering up to to 3% employer contributions, following probation. Generous employee referral bonus scheme.
• Health & Wellness: Private Medical Insurance via Aviva, or a Wellbeing Allowance to be used for memberships, subscriptions, treatment or therapy. Access to 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) through WeCare and unlimited access to Dental advice and guidance via Toothfairy. Bike to work scheme to promote healthier lifestyles.
• Time Off: 25 days of holiday per year, plus bank holidays. On top of this, you also receive your birthday off, plus 1 extra day of holiday for every year worked after you hit your 2 year anniversary, up to 5 extra days. After 4 years of service, you are also eligible for our sabbatical policy offering up to 3 months' of unpaid sabbatical.
• Helping Families: Variety of family-friendly leave, including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption, fertility, pregnancy loss and carers leave. Unlock savings with our workplace nursery scheme, designed to support parents of preschool-aged children.
• People & Planet: Up to 2 volunteer days a year. A Book Allowance of up to £50 a year to contribute to your professional development.
• Fun Perks: You receive your very own Yoto player and starter pack of cards! Regular company socials and celebrations, including our annual YotoFest!

Equity and Diversity

At Yoto, we love creating a world where childhood is rich with discovery and joy. We’re also passionate about building a workplace where everyone can thrive - both professionally and personally. We value flexibility and give our team the freedom to balance life and work in ways that suit them.

We're committed to fostering a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued and supported. Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion group holds bi-monthly forums to elevate diverse voices and perspectives, ensuring everyone at Yoto feels heard, respected, and appreciated.

We don’t just embrace differences - we celebrate them. We share audio content from a vibrant and diverse community of creators (check out our DEI selection), and we are building a team that reflects that same diversity. We invite candidates from all walks of life to explore opportunities with us and join a company that champions flexibility, equity, and inclusion. Take a look at our website for more information on our approach to People and Planet.

Please only apply or engage with Yoto jobs posted on our careers page (careers.yotoplay.com or careers.yotoplay.com/en). All correspondence from our Talent team will only come through Teamtailor, our application tracking system.

Department

Technology

Locations

Yoto HQ - UK

Remote status

Hybrid

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