Principal Software Engineer - Transfers

About HL And The Opportunity We're building the next generation platform for one of the UK's largest financial services companies, trusted by over 2 million clients and managing c.£150 billion in assets. You will contribute in expanding our new capabilities that will enable our clients to seamlessly transfer in (and out) financial products like SIPPs and ISAs. Be part of HL's future.

Be part of the future of investing. Shape it with us. About the Role As the Principal Engineer in our Transfers Tribe, you will be the technical authority across the Transfers domain, shaping the architecture, technical direction, and long-term health of systems. You will focus on solving the hardest technical and architectural problems at scale, reducing systemic risk, and enabling teams to deliver faster without compromising stability, security, or regulatory compliance.

You will work closely with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, Architecture, and Platform teams within an end-to-end, product-led delivery model.

Key Responsibilities Collaboration & Influence Lead through influence:
Align stakeholders, run design reviews, drive decisions, own technical governance and unblock delivery teams. Work closely with Product, Operations, Architecture, and Platform teams to ensure solutions are fit for live service. Support regulatory, audit, and operational discussions by clearly articulating technical design choices and risks. Technical Strategy & Architecture Set and evolve the technical direction for the Transfers domain, ensuring architectural integrity, scalability, and resilience.

Own and maintain architectural principles, guardrails, and standards, balancing short-term delivery with long-term sustainability. Lead early technical discovery for initiatives, shaping solution options, trade-offs, and technical risk assessments. Identify and proactively reduce system-level and cross-team technical risks, including performance, operability, and data integrity. Engineering & Problem Solving Solve complex technical problems across event-driven flows, integrations, orchestration, and data consistency. Drive improvements in testability, observability, deployment safety, and recovery across Transfers systems.

Technical Leadership & Enablement Act as a technical mentor and coach to senior engineers, raising the technical bar across tribes Partner with Engineering Managers to enable sustainable, predictable delivery. Provide clear technical direction through shared patterns, guidance, and architectural decisions. Skills & Experience Essential At least 2 years in a Principal Engineering or Solution Architect role or similar Proven ability to set technical direction across multiple teams without line management responsibility.

Strong Java software engineering background with the ability to engage on architecture decisions. We use Java 21 and Spring Boot paired with RDBMS and No

SQL databases

Experience with AWS and event-driven architectures. Experience delivering product-led, agile software. Strong stakeholder management across Product, Operations, and Engineering. Excellent communication skills, able to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Desirable Experience in financial services Experience improving operational resilience and throughput via system redesign and automation.

Experience with agent-first organisations What Success Looks Like Transfers systems are simpler, more resilient, and easier to change, with fewer incidents and faster recovery. Technical risks are surfaced and addressed early, enabling predictable delivery. Clear architectural direction reduces rework, inconsistency, and regret spend. Interview Process 3 Stage Interview Stage 1 - Discussion with our Hiring Manager (45 mins): A chance to talk with our Hiring Manager in more detail about the role, our tech stack and some of the problems we solve every day.

Here, we'll dig a bit more into some of your experiences, understand the processes you're familiar with and the technologies you've used to deliver end user value as well as your approach to influencing without line management. Stage 2 - Technical (90 mins):
For the technical part, we'd like you to sit down with some of your potential peers to work through a technical solution. We'll be looking together at system design, deep-dive into areas like event-driven systems or migration paths for live systems, and how to influence your peers. Stage 3 - Culture Fit (30 mins):
In our Cultural Fit interview, we'll be looking to learn more about your past experiences, what keeps you motivated, where we may be able to help you improve further, key decisions you've helped to make and issues you've resolved.