Principal Front-End Engineer: Lead React & Cloud (Hybrid) in Leicester

We’re a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become The Best and Biggest in the UK market. Over the past few years, we’ve made significant investments in our data and tech capabilities, particularly within our CIO function. Our CIO team is at the forefront of driving innovation and ensuring our technology infrastructure supports our ambitious goals. We’ve nurtured our 4Cs culture, fostering collaboration, creativity, and continuous improvement.

The CIO team plays a crucial role in this journey, working on cutting‑edge projects that enhance our digital presence and improve customer engagement. We provide insurance to over four million customers, but we know there’s even bigger opportunity out there. We hope you like what you see, and you’ll join us to share in the success of the exciting chapter that lies ahead.

We understand some people may not apply for jobs unless they feel they tick every box. If you are excited about joining us and think you have some of what we are looking for, even if you’re not 100% sure, we would love to hear from you. Our CIO team is always looking for passionate individuals who are eager to make a difference and contribute to our success.

This is a Hybrid opportunity available from our offices in Leicester or Bexhill. At Hastings Direct, we’re transforming how we build, deliver, and scale technology across the organisation. We’re looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to play a critical leadership role within our Technology Engineering function, helping shape engineering standards, drive delivery excellence, and influence enterprise‑wide outcomes.

This is a highly visible role, combining hands‑on technical leadership, strategic influence, and people development within a fast‑paced CIO environment. We are looking for a strong leader of people who can inspire high performance, coach and develop engineering talent, and set the standard for technical excellence while driving meaningful business impact.

What you’ll be doing:

• As a Principal Engineer within the Technology Engineering team (CIO), you’ll play a key role in developing engineers through line management, mentoring, sponsorship, and delivering clear, constructive feedback.
• You’ll be deployed to the highest‑priority business challenges, quickly resolving complex issues and helping the organisation learn how to prevent them in future.
• You’ll provide strategic and technical input to improve project outcomes and influence the company’s direction through high‑impact delivery.
• Working closely with stakeholders, you’ll shape and improve the delivery pipeline by identifying gaps and leading solutions that increase speed, reliability, and consistency across the SDLC.
• You’ll also identify opportunities to reuse and enhance existing platforms to maximise engineering investment.
• You’ll lead the Centre of Excellence for your domain, driving tooling improvements, establishing best practices and controls, and embedding continuous learning.
• As a recognised role model, you’ll champion high standards, link technical decisions to business impact, and foster a high‑performance engineering culture.

Technical Skills & Experience Required

What we’re looking for:

• Strong transformational leadership skills, with the ability to influence decisions and implement new processes aligned to business goals.
• Excellent mentoring and people development capability.
• Extensive experience in application and/or web development within an Agile environment.

Tools & Technologies:

• Strong experience with at least one Agile methodology (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and tools such as Jira or Octane.
• Expert knowledge of cloud platforms.
• Advanced coding expertise in React or React Native app development frameworks.
• Expert use of GitHub for source control.
• Strong understanding of build, release, and deployment automation.
• Proven ability to design and integrate CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Azure DevOps or Jenkins.
• Deep experience with continuous integration platforms (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or equivalent).

Application Domains:

• Customer‑facing web and mobile e‑commerce.
• Document templating and production systems.
• Distributed n‑tier architectures.
• Web services and API‑driven / service‑oriented architectures.
• Operational reporting platforms.

Desirable:

• Monitoring tools such as Grafana, Dynatrace, or equivalent.

If you’re an experienced engineering leader who has previously managed and developed technical teams, thrives in a fast‑paced environment, and is motivated by driving both people and technical excellence, we’d love to hear from you. Apply now to join Hastings Direct and play a senior leadership role in shaping our engineering capability, culture, and impact across the business.

What we offer:

• Attractive salary based on experience plus Car Allowance (pay reviews also completed each year).
• All colleagues are eligible for our annual 4Cs performance bonus, which is usually paid in March.
• Flexible Working: We champion a flexible and hybrid working approach.
• Physical Wellbeing: We fund our colleagues to claim against everyday health care through our healthcare cash plan.
• Financial Wellbeing: Life assurance cover and income protection at no extra cost, pension contribution match up to 10%, discounts and cashback at everyday retailers.
• Mental Wellbeing Programme: Support for mental health including a mental health app and 24/7 assistance programme.
• 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with options to buy or sell contracted weeks, access to private healthcare, dental plans, and more.

Equal Opportunities:

Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.