Principal Engineer

Principal Engineer

Fully Remote

Outside IR35 Day Rate

We’re partnering with an innovative, technology-led organisation to appoint a highly experienced Principal Engineer.

This is an exciting opportunity for a senior technical leader to drive the transformation of a complex Java estate, leading advanced containerisation initiatives and improving the developer experience across the organisation.

We’re particularly interested in engineers with deep experience modernising legacy systems, integrating CI/CD pipelines and mentoring senior technical teams.

The Opportunity

As Principal Engineer, you’ll lead pivotal engineering initiatives focused on making a complex Java estate fully containerisable.

You’ll use your technical expertise to replatform, refactor and rebuild legacy systems, ensuring they integrate effectively with modern developer tooling and CI/CD pipelines. Alongside hands-on technical delivery, you’ll provide leadership and mentorship to senior engineers while promoting engineering excellence across multiple teams.

This role requires someone who can combine strategic thinking with practical problem-solving, confidently navigating complex codebases and driving meaningful technical change.

Key Responsibilities

You’ll play a key role in transforming the organisation’s engineering landscape by:

• Leading the containerisation of complex Java applications and services.

• Assessing existing codebases and identifying the changes required to support containerised deployment.

• Replatforming, refactoring and rebuilding legacy systems where necessary.

• Improving developer tooling, pipelines and the inner development loop.

• Integrating applications with CI/CD pipelines.

• Implementing automated smoke testing across non-production environments.

• Reviewing automated dependency and code-analysis reports to identify risks and improvement opportunities.

• Developing reference implementations and reusable migration approaches.

• Providing technical direction across complex engineering initiatives.

• Mentoring senior engineers and supporting technical development across teams.

• Collaborating with stakeholders and engineering teams across multiple locations.

• Promoting high standards of code quality, automation and engineering best practice.

About You

You’ll be an accomplished software engineer with extensive Java expertise and a proven ability to lead complex transformation and modernisation initiatives.

You will also have

• Extensive experience containerising Java applications, including codebases not originally designed for containerisation.

• Strong knowledge of developer tooling, delivery pipelines and the inner development loop.

• Proven experience replatforming, refactoring and rebuilding complex systems.

• Expertise in CI/CD pipeline integration.

• Experience implementing automated smoke testing across non-production environments.

• The ability to interpret automated dependency and code-analysis reports.

• Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing technical capability across teams.

• Strong technical leadership, communication and stakeholder-management skills.

• At least eight years of professional software engineering experience, including a minimum of three years in a senior or lead position.

• A bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant industry experience.

• The ability to work effectively across teams and bring structure to technically complex challenges.

Experience with the following would be advantageous

• Flutter and associated Java ecosystems.

• Automated migration tools and reference implementation assets.

• Automated dependency management and code-quality analysis.

• Cross-site technical collaboration and leadership.

• Cloud, containerisation or DevOps certifications.

Additional Requirements

• Occasional travel may be required for strategic projects and team collaboration.

Why Apply?

This is a fantastic opportunity to take a leading role in a major engineering transformation, using your expertise to modernise complex systems and improve the experience of developers across the organisation.

In return, you’ll benefit from

• A high-impact Principal Engineer position with significant technical influence.

• Ownership of complex Java containerisation and modernisation initiatives.

• The opportunity to shape engineering standards, tooling and delivery practices.

• A senior leadership role supporting the development of experienced engineers.

• Exposure to challenging, large-scale technical transformation projects.

• The opportunity to drive lasting improvements across the engineering landscape.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

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