Principal Software Engineer (Java)

At Anaplan, we are a team of innovators focused on optimizing business decision-making through our leading AI‑infused scenario planning and analysis platform so our customers can outpace their competition and the market. What unites Anaplanners across teams and geographies is our collective commitment to our customers’ success and to our Winning Culture. Our customers rank among the who’s who in the Fortune 50. Coca‑Cola, LinkedIn, Adobe, LVMH and Bayer are just a few of the 2,400+ global companies who rely on our best‑in‑class platform.

Our Winning Culture is the engine that drives our teams of innovators. We champion diversity of thought and ideas, we behave like leaders regardless of title, we are committed to achieving ambitious goals, and we love celebrating our wins – big and small. Supported by operating principles of being strategy‑led, values‑based and disciplined in execution, you’ll be inspired, connected, developed and rewarded here. Everything that makes you unique is welcome; join us and let’s build what’s next – together!

Anaplan is the leading enterprise decision‑making platform, powering the world’s largest enterprises with our proprietary Hyperblock™ technology and cloud infrastructure. We are seeking a Principal Engineer to join our team in Manchester, UK.

Your Impact

• Lead the design, delivery, and architecture of platform capabilities powering Anaplan’s enterprise‑scale API gateways, edge routing, and developer acceleration.
• Build and scale high‑throughput backend engines that manage core request orchestration, seamless multi‑tenant isolation, and API‑first solutions serving thousands of tenants and tens of thousands of users.
• Partner with architects and senior engineers across the Platform Experience domain to set technical direction, aligning implementation patterns for complex initiatives (like Vanity URLs, JWT auth flows, and cross‑service proxying).
• Drive the evolution of our deployment infrastructure, championing modern GitOps workflows (ArgoCD, Helm) and highly available containerized orchestration.
• Own foundational features end‑to‑end—from design through to production—while continuously improving system observability, implementing intelligent rate‑limiting, and solving complex concurrency challenges (e.g., database locks and connection starvation).
• Deliver thought leadership and coding excellence across Java/Kotlin, ensuring seamless integration between backend microservices and UI components (including resolving complex CORS and distributed edge proxy requirements).
• Mentor and elevate engineers across global teams through design reviews, pair programming, and hands‑on leadership to foster a resilient engineering culture.

Your Qualifications

• Extensive background in software engineering within enterprise‑scale, high‑throughput platform or data‑centric environments.
• Understand, leverage, and integrate modern AI tools and concepts—including agentic programming patterns and LLM‑assisted workflows—to accelerate platform engineering and developer velocity.
• Deep expertise in backend JVM languages (Java and/or Kotlin) with a strong understanding of distributed systems internals.
• Proven track record of delivering API‑first infrastructures, API Gateways (e.g., Traefik), and edge routing solutions that guarantee enterprise reliability under sustained traffic loads (2K+ requests per second).
• Hands‑on experience with Kubernetes, containerized deployments, and managing complex CI/CD pipelines (strong familiarity with GitOps, ArgoCD, and high‑velocity release workflows).
• Solid grounding in event‑driven architecture, real‑time data processing, and managing complex database transaction scopes at scale.
• Experience balancing rapid prototyping and fast iteration with long‑term sustainability and quality—you have a bias for action and prefer to try and iterate rather than wait for perfect information.
• Exceptional technical communicator with a proven ability to align globally distributed teams. You are highly skilled at distilling complex concepts into clear, structured RFCs and architectural designs to build consensus.

Preferred Skills

• You have shaped architecture and platform strategy at an enterprise scale, navigating the trade‑offs of hybrid and cloud‑agnostic infrastructures.
• You bring a polyglot mindset, matching the right technology to the challenge rather than defaulting to a single stack (comfortable exploring React, Python, or Go when needed).
• Genuine curiosity—you're energized by learning new technologies and approaches to solve edge routing and platform enablement challenges.
• You enjoy mentoring others and raising the bar for engineering culture, without big egos.
• You're highly comfortable operating in distributed teams, embracing asynchronous collaboration, and driving consensus across distinct domains.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB)

We believe attracting and retaining the best talent and fostering an inclusive culture strengthens our business. DEIB improves our workforce, enhances trust with our partners and customers, and drives business success. Build your career in a place where diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging aren’t just words on paper – this is what drives our innovation, it’s how we connect, and it contributes to what makes us a market leader.

We believe in a hiring and working environment where all people are respected and valued, regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity, disability status, citizenship, or any other aspect which makes people unique. We hire you for who you are, and we want you to bring your authentic self to work every day! We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive equitable benefits and all privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.