Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer

Location: London - Hybrid

Salary: Up to £110,000 + Bonus & Benefits

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join a global technology business whose platforms underpin consumer experiences used by millions of people every day. This is an established, scaled business with a genuinely global reach and this role sits at the heart of their core engineering capability.

This isn't a purely strategic seat. You'll have genuine technical authority over a business-critical API platform while staying close to the engineering, partnering with skilled squads to solve complex distributed systems challenges at scale.

Key Responsibilities:

• Set the technical direction for a large-scale API platform across both synchronous and event-driven services
• Lead architectural design across a modern, cloud-native stack
• Drive continuous improvement across security, observability, performance, and long-term maintainability
• Mentor and develop engineers and technical leads across multiple teams
• Work closely with Product and Delivery leadership to keep engineering strategy aligned with broader business goals
• Champion strong engineering fundamentals — testing, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and clean architecture
• Identify practical ways to bring emerging technologies, including AI tooling, into everyday engineering workflows~

Key Requirements:

• A strong track record delivering large-scale distributed systems in cloud environments
• Deep knowledge of API design - REST and GraphQL, and substantial hands-on experience with Kafka in a production environment
• Solid cloud platform experience, particularly AWS, and comfort with containerised infrastructure
• Proficiency in TypeScript across a modern backend stack
• Experience leading and influencing across multiple engineering teams, not just within a single squad
• A genuine care for code quality, sustainable architecture, and long-term thinking over short-term delivery
• A collaborative, mentoring leadership style that brings the best out of the people around you
• An interest in how AI is changing the way engineering teams work
• Enterprise CRM experience would be an advantage

What's on Offer:

• Salary Up to £110,000 plus bonus
• Genuinely flexible hybrid working arrangements
• Generous parental leave and family-friendly policies
• Strong support for career development and progression

This is the right role for a Principal Engineer who is ready to move beyond squad-level impact and take on something bigger - shaping the architecture, the team, and the direction of a platform that matters at real scale.

Unfortunately, due to the high volume of applications, not everyone will be able to receive detailed feedback.