Principal IS Engineer in Leeds

Join us as a Principal Engineer at Centrica, a leading energy company that is redefining how we power the planet.

Location: UK-based hybrid role, occasional travel to site.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical vision, aligning engineering direction with business goals while shaping product and technology roadmaps.
• Champion best engineering practices, fostering a collaborative culture and raising technical standards across teams.
• Design and evolve scalable, high-performance architectures for complex, enterprise-level systems.
• Mentor and guide engineers while remaining hands-on through coding, code reviews and technical leadership.
• Partner with product, design and business stakeholders to deliver high-quality, customer-focused outcomes.
• Ensure reliability, security and continuous improvement, translating complex technical concepts into clear business value.

Requirements

• Provide clear technical leadership and guidance across architecture, design standards and implementation, acting as a trusted expert across the organisation.
• Lead the design of high-level solutions and support teams in building scalable, modern services using best-in-class patterns.
• Act as the go-to authority on architecture and engineering practices, setting direction while staying hands-on where it matters.
• Mentor and develop engineers, aligning long-term technical direction with business goals and building strong, future-ready teams.
• Collaborate seamlessly across product, engineering and business teams to deliver cohesive, high-quality solutions.
• Tackle complex challenges with strong problem-solving skills, bringing data-driven thinking and objective reasoning to decision-making.
• Communicate with impact, translating technical detail into clear business value and influencing stakeholders at all levels.
• Thrive in a fast-paced, evolving environment, confidently navigating ambiguity, context-switching and driving continuous improvement.

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.

Benefits

• Generous market salary.
• Car Allowance program to support commuting and adventures.
• 15% Employee Energy Allowance, surpassing the government’s price cap.
• Comprehensive pension plan.
• Fully-funded company healthcare plan.
• 25-day holiday allowance plus public holidays, with the option to purchase up to 5 extra days.
• Flexible benefits package, including technology perks, eco-friendly car leases and travel insurance.
• Support for personal well-being and family needs with flexible working arrangements.