At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the evolution of our Field Platform, driving innovation and automation.
- Company: Join Centrica, a family of brands powering a greener future.
- Benefits: Flexible rewards, supportive culture, and focus on personal growth.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with opportunities to shape the future of energy.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on sustainability while advancing your career.
- Qualifications: Experience in software engineering and a passion for innovative solutions.
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 Platform. The role ensures that our platform delivers 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.
Day to day
- Define & evolve the Field Platform architecture: Set the long-term architecture, patterns, and guardrails for Field platform services to ensure scalability, resilience, interoperability, and a unified experience.
- Drive consolidation and simplification of the estate: Lead the rationalisation of the platform 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 standards across all field workflows.
- Identify and deliver new digital capabilities: Work with product and business leaders to define new capabilities (such as supply chain, quoting, workflow optimisation, knowledge management) to enhance safety, compliance, customer experience, and productivity.
- Establish engineering excellence across teams: Champion high engineering standards including 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 environment performs reliably in challenging field conditions (such as poor signal or 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 and AI, and scale better engineering practices across squads.
Key Stakeholders
The Principal Software Engineer works closely with the Head of Engineering to align on engineering strategy, technical priorities and delivery performance. They partner frequently with Product Managers to translate business needs into technical solutions and ensure roadmap clarity. Collaboration with Field Operations SMEs ensures platform enhancements meet operational, safety and compliance requirements. In addition, the role builds relationships with external partners and tooling providers (such as Microsoft and Datadog) through hackathons, roadmap discussions and innovation sessions to explore performance, monitoring and platform optimisation opportunities.
Leadership
Leadership Model (no direct line management): Lead through influence and expertise across squads, shaping backlog, standards and adoption; coach analysts/engineers; role model product led, iterative delivery and high bar for quality/controls.
Membership & Forums: Participate in relevant governance/design forums Capability Uplift: Build functional playbooks, patterns and guardrails; run knowledge shares and communities of practice.
What We Need From You
Nature of Thinking Required: 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: Field platform architecture, coding standards, integration patterns, security baseline, technology choices, performance strategies. Acceptance of technical designs, readiness for release, critical code reviews. Decisions: Influenced: Product roadmap priorities, UX direction, cross team delivery sequencing, partner tool selection, funding for technical investments.
Use of Insight, Data & Automation: 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.
Business Expertise
Understanding of field workforce operations (installation, service, repair). Awareness of compliance, safety, regulatory needs related to field processes. Experience working in product led organisations and cross functional teams.
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 - Platform Enablement Squad in England employer: Centrica
Centrica is an exceptional employer that prioritises the well-being and growth of its employees, offering a supportive work culture that values flexibility and personal development. As part of a dynamic team dedicated to revolutionising energy systems, you'll have the opportunity to tackle complex challenges while contributing to a greener future, all within a collaborative environment that champions innovation and inclusivity. With a commitment to employee welfare and a focus on meaningful work, Centrica stands out as a place where your contributions truly matter.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Engineer - Platform Enablement Squad in England
✨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 the company’s recent projects and initiatives. Show that you’re not just interested in the role, but also in how you can contribute to their mission of a greener future.
✨Tip Number 3
Practice your technical skills and be ready to discuss your past projects. Be specific about your contributions and how they relate to the role of Principal Engineer. We want to see your problem-solving skills in action!
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in being part of our team and contributing to something bigger.
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Engineer - Platform Enablement Squad in England
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Your Passion for Energy:When writing your application, let your enthusiasm for sustainable energy shine through. We want to see how your values align with our mission of creating a greener future. Share any relevant experiences that highlight your commitment to positive change!
Tailor Your Application:Make sure to customise your application to reflect the specific requirements of the Principal Engineer role. Highlight your technical skills and experiences that directly relate to platform architecture, automation, and AI. We love seeing how you can contribute to our team!
Be Clear and Concise:Keep your application straightforward and to the point. Use clear language to describe your achievements and how they relate to the job. We appreciate well-structured applications that make it easy for us to see your potential!
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 shows you’re serious about joining our team at Centrica!
How to prepare for a job interview at Centrica
✨Know the Company Inside Out
Before your interview, dive deep into Centrica's mission and values. Understand their commitment to sustainability and how technology plays a role in their strategy. This will not only help you answer questions more effectively but also show your genuine interest in being part of their journey.
✨Showcase Your Technical Leadership
As a Principal Engineer, you'll need to demonstrate your ability to lead technical discussions and make architectural decisions. Prepare examples from your past experiences where you've successfully influenced cross-functional teams or improved engineering standards. Be ready to discuss how you can apply these skills to evolve the Field Platform.
✨Prepare for Complex Problem-Solving
Expect questions that assess your ability to tackle complex, cross-domain challenges. Brush up on your knowledge of mobile, backend APIs, and orchestration layers. Think of scenarios where you've solved ambiguous problems and be prepared to walk through your thought process during the interview.
✨Emphasise Collaboration and Communication
Centrica values teamwork and collaboration across various domains. Be ready to discuss how you've worked with product managers, engineers, and other stakeholders to deliver successful projects. Highlight your experience in building relationships and fostering a collaborative environment, as this will resonate well with their team-oriented culture.
