Principal Engineer

Principal Engineer

Base pay range:
Based on skills and experience – discuss with the recruiter.

Company:
Recognised in the Times
100 fastest growing companies, this challenger technology company serves 5 million customers and 600 brands, delivering real‑time data through its unique AI platform.

Location:

Manchester, England, United Kingdom

Employment type:

Full‑time

Seniority level:
Mid‑Senior level

Job function:
Information Technology

What you’ll work on:

• Modernising our platform – lead the complete replacement of legacy systems with a cloud‑native architecture in Java & Kotlin on AWS.
• Next‑gen pricing models – design and deliver an AI‑driven pricing platform that powers smarter, real‑time decisions.
• New product development – define and launch innovative fintech products shaping future customer experience.
• Culture‑building – build the engineering culture in our new UK office, mentor engineers and embed best‑in‑class practices.

Day‑to‑day you’ll:

• Set the technical vision and drive engineering excellence across four agile squads.
• Design and evolve a modern microservices architecture running on AWS.
• Lead on scalability, reliability and performance, ensuring the platform meets rapid growth demands.
• Coach and mentor senior engineers, fostering a culture of technical craftsmanship and continuous improvement.
• Partner with Product and Architecture leads to align technology with strategic goals.

What do you need to be successful?

• You’re a hands‑on Lead/Principal Engineer who still loves to dive into design discussions and code when it matters.
• Deep expertise in Java (and Kotlin) with a strong track record of building large‑scale distributed systems.
• Experience leading or influencing large‑scale systems, ideally in a cloud‑first environment (AWS preferred).
• Systems thinking, balancing long‑term vision with incremental, value‑driven delivery.
• Experience with microservices, APIs, event‑driven design, observability and platform reliability.
• Natural collaborator, building trust across engineering, product and leadership.
• Concern for how teams build as much as what they build, enabling autonomy, consistency and learning.

Interested?

Apply today to join a community of engineers who value craftsmanship, fun and delivery. Your influence won’t be limited to one team – you’ll help shape the technical DNA of the organisation.

Send over your CV (if you have one) and the team will be in touch ASAP.

* PLEASE NOTE* – for this role we are looking for a strong software engineering background rather than an infrastructure background.