Tech Lead - Customer Care

Do you like staying close to the code while also deciding how a team builds its systems? As Tech Lead for our Customer Care team, you set the technical direction for the AI tools that hundreds of thousands of energy and internet customers actually talk to. If that sounds like the right mix for you, keep reading.

What you'll do

As Tech Lead for Customer Care, you own the technical direction of the team building our customer-facing AI stack: an LLM-powered chatbot with voice as a core capability, the Knowledge Base/RAG pipeline that feeds it, and the tooling and feedback loop the team uses to keep improving both. Real customers with real questions about their energy bill or internet contract get answers your team builds. That's the weight of it, and the fun of it.

Day to day, this looks like:

• Translating product and domain challenges into clear technical approaches that balance speed, quality, and long-term stability.

• Being in the code and in the room: reviewing designs, pairing with engineers, and coaching them through harder decisions instead of making those decisions for them.

• Keeping services observable, secure, resilient, and genuinely production-ready on Kubernetes.

• Working closely with our architect on where this team's systems end and the rest of the domain begins.

• Making the team's day-to-day better through tooling, CI/CD, and testing practices that pay off over months, not just this sprint.

• Building a culture where people want to keep learning and take ownership of what they ship.

About the team

The team builds the suite of AI tools that supports our customers: a chatbot with voice as a core capability, the Knowledge Base/RAG pipeline behind it, and the feedback loop that keeps improving both. It's a small team in the in customer care domain, working alongside an internal architect, a QA engineer, and an external delivery partner. You report to the Engineering Manager, who owns people and direction, while you run delivery day to day, coach engineers who own their own solutions, and work out with the architect how domain-wide direction gets built inside the team. The team is early enough that you'll shape real decisions instead of inheriting them.

What you bring

We're looking for a senior, hands-on engineer who leads from inside the work, someone who still reviews and writes code instead of only diagramming it. This is a leadership-forward role, roughly 70% leadership and 30% hands-on, so a track record of mentoring and developing the people around you matters at least as much as any single technology on your CV.

You'll need:

• Experience as a Tech Lead, Staff Engineer, or Engineering Lead in a software team.

• Solid C# fundamentals, with enough Kubernetes and Azure knowledge to reason about production systems.

• Familiarity with real-time web technologies like WebSockets and React.

• Communication that works both with an engineer mid-debug and with a stakeholder who's never heard of a RAG pipeline.

Nice to have, not required:

• Experience with agentic workflow design or RAG systems.

• Familiarity with orchestration frameworks such as Semantic Kernel or Azure AI Foundry.

• Experience with voice or speech pipelines (STT/TTS, real-time audio).

• Experience with technical hiring.

If you meet most of the above and the rest sounds like something you'd enjoy growing into, we'd still love to hear from you. We're hiring someone who'll grow with the role, not a finished checklist.

At Budget Thuis, we think it's important that you can be 100% yourself. We're open to different perspectives and personalities. For this role, we're especially looking for someone who enriches our team in every way, someone who adds real value from their own background.

Why the grass is greener here

• A gross monthly salary of €5.000,- to €7.100,- based on a 40-hour workweek;

• 13th month salary;

• Budget Summer Holiday: every Friday off in July and August (9 extra days);

• 1 paid volunteering day per year;

• 25 holiday days, with the option to buy 1.5 extra weeks;

• Pension: 16% of gross salary incl. holiday allowance (11% Budget Thuis, 5% own contribution);

• Monthly ClassPass credits;

• Travel allowance: Swapfiets or NS Business Card, your choice;

• Free mobile and internet subscription from Budget Thuis;

• Hybrid working (50/50);

• 1 month per year fully remote;

• Free access to OpenUp for mental health support and courses.

How to apply

Ready to lead our AI team as the next Tech Lead in the energy sector? Send your CV to Wouter, wouter.vanittersum@budgetthuis.nl together with a few lines on what draws you to this role and, if you have one, an example of something similar you've built or led. A few honest paragraphs are enough, no need for a full cover letter. Got questions before applying? Reach out to the same address, we're happy to talk it through first.

Relocation is not possible.