Principal Engineer - 1 Year FTC (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London)

As a Principal Engineer at Genomics England, you will be a hands-on contributor with exemplary engineering skills, who also has an ability to think strategically to define architectural directions. You may have previously worked under a variety of different job titles within engineering and/or architecture, and you may have worked in a variety of organisational contexts. Whatever your past experience, it will have given you both technical breadth and depth. You will be a problem-solver who identifies risks, issues, gaps, and dependencies and brings people together to find solutions. You will do this through your supportive, empathetic and collaborative behaviours - acting as coach, mentor, guide or constructive questioner as the situation demands. You are pragmatic but also mindful of the big picture - consciously balancing the immediate goals of teams against the long-term direction for their products.

About the Tech Stack

Our bio-pipelines platform works across both on-premise High-Performance Compute clusters to AWS, and our workflows are orchestrated in Python / NextFlow. We leverage best-in-class tools like Dragen to do some of the heavy-lifting. We use things like Python, MongoDB and DynamoDB to deliver RESTful services that provide authoritative data for use during processing. We are working to become interoperable with the wider NHS via open standards like FHIR and GA4GH APIs. We have a standard tool chain which includes Terraform for infrastructure-as-code, GitLab for source code and CI/CD, Artifactory for software artefacts and DataDog for observability.

Key Responsibilities

• Work alongside product managers, squad engineers, bioinformaticians and other subject matter experts to continuously evolve a roadmap for change.
• Be the voice of technical excellence in any conversation, ensuring that the functional, safety and operational characteristics of our products are continuously improving.
• Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends, and incorporate them into our software development practices.
• Contribute to the wider conversation at Genomics England and help mature our technical practices.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Strong software engineering skills and awareness of software design patterns (Python preferred, Typescript/React desirable, polyglot ideal).
• Knowledge of different database types and their applicability in a given context (Postgres/Aurora, MongoDB and Elastic/OpenSearch are in use at Genomics England).
• Experience shaping and guiding architectural choices, both tactical as well as long-term architectural strategy and direction.
• Experience of API schema design and evolution.
• DevOps experience (CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, operational monitoring and alerting).
• Experience in at least one major public cloud (AWS preferred but not essential).
• Strong interpersonal skills with a temperament that builds trust and connection within and across squads through open, honest communication.
• Comfortable engaging responsively with teams both remotely and in person when required.
• Ability to navigate rapidly to effective solutions through engaged and inclusive listening, clarity of thought, clear documentation, and succinct presentation.

These skills are not essential but if you have any of them, they may be a good indicator that you would be well prepared to hit the ground running:

• Background in healthcare or bioinformatics.
• Experience in regulated environments.
• Familiarity with workflow technologies like Apache Airflow or NextFlow.
• Proficiency in handling large, complex datasets using tools like Hadoop/EMR or Spark.

Qualifications

While we love to see and recognise the genuine value and importance of relevant qualifications, we are primarily interested in your real-world experience.

Additional Information

So, if you are proven and highly experienced Principal Engineer who wants your work to go beyond just systems and make a genuine difference by helping to transform national healthcare, this really is a fantastic role and one where you can have real impact!

Salary

From £103,400 pa

Please note

This is a 1 Year FTC (Fixed Term Contract). For internal candidates we will consider this as an internal secondment for the same duration.

Closing Date

Wednesday 17th June @ 23:00 (UK time)

Benefits

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and also the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Culture

We have four key behaviours that represent what we would like Genomics England to feel like and the culture we want to encourage, in order for us to achieve our mission. These behaviours help us all work well together, deliver on our outcomes, celebrate our successes and share feedback with each other.

You can read about these and other aspects of our culture here Culture | Genomics England

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full-time on-site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team. Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.