At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the evolution of our mobile platform and drive engineering excellence.
- Company: Join a family of brands revolutionising energy for a greener future.
- Benefits: Flexible rewards, support for your well-being, and career growth opportunities.
- Other info: Hybrid role with a focus on collaboration and continuous improvement.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on sustainability while advancing your technical skills.
- Qualifications: Experience in software engineering and a passion for innovative technology.
The predicted salary is between 80000 - 100000 £ per year.
Join us, be part of more. We're so much more than an energy company. We're a family of brands revolutionising how we power the planet. We're energisers. One team of 21,000 colleagues that's energising a greener, fairer future by creating an energy system that doesn't rely on fossil fuels, whilst living our powerful commitment to igniting positive change in our communities. Here, you can find more purpose, more passion, and more potential. That's why working here is #MoreThanACareer.
We do energy differently - we do it all. We make it, store it, move it, sell it, and mend it. Centrica, Technology is a core driver of how we deliver our strategy. You'll join a team modernising our platforms, strengthening cyber and operational resilience, and advancing a product-led way of working that brings engineers, data specialists and business experts together to deliver meaningful outcomes at pace. We're scaling automation and AI from proof-of-concept into real, end-to-end change - improving customer journeys, reducing cost-to-serve, accelerating delivery, and building the digital foundations that underpin everything from energy trading and risk to field operations and critical infrastructure.
If you want to work on complex, high-impact problems using modern engineering practices, and help build reusable platforms that will shape how Centrica operates over the next decade, this is the place to do it.
An opportunity to play your part - The Principal Software Engineer provides the technical leadership, architectural vision, and engineering standards required to evolve and scale the Field Mobile Platform. The role ensures that our mobile applications deliver a unified, performant, secure and resilient experience that enables thousands of field colleagues to work efficiently, safely and effectively every day. The role is expected to use automation, data and AI enabled tooling to reduce repetitive work, improve code quality, speed up development cycles and strengthen reliability-while retaining full human accountability for technical judgement and decisions.
Location: UK-based hybrid role, Occasional travel to site.
Day to day:
- Define & evolve the Field Mobile Platform architecture: Set the long term architecture, patterns, and guardrails for mobile apps, APIs, integration layers, and platform services to ensure scalability, resilience, interoperability and a unified experience.
- Drive consolidation and simplification of the mobile estate: Lead the rationalisation of legacy mobile apps into a coherent platform, reducing duplication, technical debt, maintenance costs, and operational complexity.
- Shape cross domain technical design decisions: Partner across Product, Architecture, Supply Chain, Scheduling, and Field Operations to drive consistent data models, integration patterns, UX principles and mobile standards across all field workflows.
- Identify and deliver new digital capabilities: Work with product and business leaders to define new mobile capabilities (e.g., supply chain, quoting, workflow optimisation, knowledge management) to enhance safety, compliance, customer experience and productivity.
- Establish engineering excellence across teams: Champion high engineering standards: clean architecture, CI/CD automation, observability, testing strategies, release processes, telemetry, performance tuning and secure-by-design principles.
- Lead platform performance, reliability & offline capability: Ensure the mobile environment performs reliably in challenging field conditions (poor signal, offline mode), with focus on failover behaviours, caching, performance profiling and user trust.
- Influence and steward Security, SRE, Quality and Platform wide capabilities: Shape quality, resilience, and security strategies across teams-ensuring teams adopt shift left testing, strong security hygiene, consistent observability, and reliable operational processes.
- Improve how work is done: Continuously identify opportunities to automate, simplify, reduce cycle time, improve developer experience, adopt new tools/AI, and scale better engineering practices across squads.
Here's who we're looking for:
Technical Skills- Technical leadership and architectural vision to evolve and scale mobile platform.
- Significant experience as a senior/principal software engineer in complex digital platforms.
- Experience working across multiple teams and influencing without line management.
- Define mobile platform architecture/guardrails; drive engineering excellence (CI/CD, observability, testing); ensure performance, reliability and offline capability.
- Deep expertise in modern engineering practices (APIs, microservices, CI/CD, observability).
- Proven ability to define and influence technical standards and architectural direction.
- Strong problem solving skills in ambiguous, high impact technical environments.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or equivalent experience.
Resolves complex, cross domain technical challenges involving mobile, backend APIs, orchestration layers, and field operational workflows. Balances near term delivery pressure against long term architectural sustainability. Solves ambiguous problems with incomplete data, designing scalable patterns that support multiple business domains.
Decisions:- Owned: Mobile platform architecture, coding standards, integration patterns, security baseline, technology choices, performance strategies. Acceptance of technical designs, readiness for release, critical code reviews.
- Influenced: Product roadmap priorities, UX direction, cross team delivery sequencing, partner tool selection, funding for technical investments.
Uses telemetry, profiling tools, error tracking, synthetic monitoring and AI assisted diagnostics to drive decisions. Validates but does not blindly trust automated or AI generated insights; human in the loop accountability remains primary.
Constraints & Frameworks:Centrica architectural frameworks, security and data privacy standards, mobile platform patterns, operational governance.
Core Competencies & Technical Skills (AI and emerging technology):- Designs, integrates and operates AI-enabled solutions within enterprise environments, including prompt-driven workflows, retrieval-augmented systems and AI agents.
- Applies structured evaluation, testing and monitoring practices to ensure AI outputs are reliable, secure and compliant with organisational guardrails.
- Prepares and manages data used in AI workflows and takes responsibility for the responsible lifecycle of AI features from experimentation through deployment and continuous improvement.
- Take Ownership
- Work as One Team
- Develop a Growth Mindset
- Strive to Innovate
- Champion Customers
Why should you apply? We're not a perfect place - but we're a people place. Our priority is supporting all of the different realities our people face. Life is about so much more than work. We get it. That's why we've designed our total rewards to give you the flexibility to choose what you need, when you need it, making sure that you and your family are supported not only financially, but physically and emotionally too.
If you're full of energy, fired up about sustainability, and ready to craft not only a better tomorrow, but a better you, then come and find your purpose in a team where your voice matters, your growth is non-negotiable, and your ambitions are our priority.
Principal Engineer in Windsor employer: Centrica - CHP
Contact Detail:
Centrica - CHP Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Engineer in Windsor
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to current employees on LinkedIn or at industry events. Ask them about their experiences and the company culture. This can give you insider info and might even lead to a referral!
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for the interview by researching common questions for Principal Engineers. Think about how your experience aligns with the job description and be ready to share specific examples of your past work.
✨Tip Number 3
Show your passion for sustainability and innovation during interviews. Talk about how you can contribute to Centrica's mission of energising a greener future. Let them see your enthusiasm for making a difference!
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in being part of our team.
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Engineer in Windsor
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Your Passion: When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for the role and our mission shine through. We want to see how your values align with ours, especially when it comes to creating a greener future.
Tailor Your Experience: Make sure to highlight your relevant experience in software engineering and any specific projects that relate to mobile platforms or automation. We love seeing how your background can contribute to our goals!
Be Clear and Concise: Keep your application straightforward and to the point. Use clear language to describe your skills and experiences, as we appreciate direct communication that gets to the heart of what you bring to the table.
Apply Through Our Website: Don’t forget to submit your application through our website! It’s the best way for us to receive your details and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it’s super easy to do!
How to prepare for a job interview at Centrica - CHP
✨Know Your Tech Inside Out
As a Principal Engineer, you'll need to demonstrate your deep understanding of mobile platform architecture and modern engineering practices. Brush up on your knowledge of APIs, microservices, and CI/CD processes. Be ready to discuss how you've applied these in past projects and how they can be leveraged at Centrica.
✨Showcase Your Leadership Skills
This role requires strong technical leadership. Prepare examples of how you've influenced cross-domain technical decisions and driven engineering excellence in previous roles. Highlight your ability to work collaboratively across teams and how you’ve championed best practices in software development.
✨Prepare for Problem-Solving Scenarios
Expect to tackle complex, ambiguous problems during the interview. Think about past challenges you've faced in high-impact technical environments and how you resolved them. Be ready to explain your thought process and the architectural patterns you designed to support multiple business domains.
✨Align with Centrica's Values
Centrica is all about igniting positive change and working towards a greener future. Familiarise yourself with their mission and values, and be prepared to discuss how your personal values align with theirs. Show your passion for sustainability and how you can contribute to their vision of a better tomorrow.