Principal Software Engineer - International

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As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you'll be joining a well-loved British brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues. With ethical values at the heart of the business and technology leaders who understand modern software engineering, this is an exciting time to join us as we become a digital-first, engineering-led organisation.

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across our International Fashion, Home & Beauty domain. You will shape and modernise mission-critical platforms that support international growth, working closely with Engineering, Product, Architecture, Delivery and partner teams to design robust, scalable, secure and reusable technology solutions.

This role is central to enabling M&S to scale across international stores, digital commerce channels and partner propositions. You will set technical direction, raise engineering standards and help build platforms that support product, price and availability flows, partner and marketplace integrations, fulfilment, warehouse and logistics integrations, and market-specific customer experiences.

Due to high interest, this role may close earlier than advertised. We recommend applying as soon as possible.

Your key accountabilities will include:

• Lead technical excellence across the full software development lifecycle, from solution design through launch and live operation of core product features, strategic platforms and business-critical programmes.
• Define and evolve scalable integration patterns for product, price and availability flows, fulfilment capabilities, partner onboarding, marketplace integrations and market-specific customer experiences.
• Shape technical direction and influence Technology and Product investment decisions, engineering team structures and delivery approaches to ensure sustainable, scalable outcomes.
• Champion engineering excellence by promoting clean code, clean architecture, automation, Dev Ops principles and pragmatic engineering practices that improve maintainability, productivity and delivery quality.
• Drive operational ownership and "you build it, you run it" practices, enabling teams to build, release, monitor and continuously improve the services they own.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to internal engineering teams and external delivery partners, creating alignment across complex multi-team and multi-supplier delivery environments.
• Build engineering capability through mentoring, Communities of Practice, innovation initiatives, recruitment support, onboarding activities and contributions to the wider engineering community.

Your skills and experience will include:

• Significant experience providing technical leadership across complex software engineering environments, with a proven track record of strategic thinking, technical innovation and successful large-scale delivery.
• Strong expertise in software engineering fundamentals, including clean code, clean architecture, design patterns, distributed systems and solution design for highly complex, business-critical platforms.
• Demonstrable experience shaping technology strategy and implementation approaches, ensuring alignment with business objectives, engineering standards, governance requirements and long-term architectural direction.
• Deep knowledge of cloud and platform engineering, including cloud-native architectures, Kubernetes, networking, security, observability, reliability engineering and automation practices.
• Strong understanding of quality engineering, test strategies, testing quadrants, testing pyramids, continuous integration, continuous delivery and Dev Ops ownership models.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to engage and guide senior technical and non-technical audiences while driving consensus across multiple teams.
• A strong leadership mindset with high levels of ownership, accountability and coaching capability, helping senior engineers and stakeholders make effective technical decisions without over-prescribing solutions.

M&S uses a variety of technologies and, as part of our modernisation drive, will continue to introduce new ones. Technologies currently include:

• Java, Spring, Spring Boot and Micronaut
• React, Next.js, Type Script and Angular
• Azure Cloud and Kubernetes
• Kafka and IBM MQ
• SQL Server, MongoDB and Redis
• Open Telemetry and Dynatrace

• Experience with in retail, international commerce, supply chain or logistics environments, including warehouse management systems, fulfilment platforms, marketplace aggregators, partner integrations and complex customer or partner ecosystems.
• Experience working with third-party vendors, system integrators and outsourced delivery models, with the ability to maintain engineering quality, architectural standards and delivery consistency across mixed internal and external teams.
• Experience leading engineering…