At a Glance
- Tasks: Drive innovation and shape the future of engineering at Omaze.
- Company: Omaze, a tech company making a social impact through luxury prizes.
- Benefits: Generous stock options, 25 days leave, private medical insurance, and a personal development budget.
- Other info: Join a diverse team committed to continuous learning and innovation.
- Why this job: Be a key player in tackling complex technical challenges and influencing strategy.
- Qualifications: Experience at Staff or Principal level with strong software engineering fundamentals.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 87100 £ per year.
Hybrid - 3 days a week onsite
Who We Are:
At Omaze, we give our community in the UK and Germany the chance to win luxury homes and other life-changing prizes — all while raising money for the causes they love. Thanks to our Omaze Community, we’ve raised over £150 million for UK charities in just five years. That’s millions helping organisations like Age UK, the RSPCA, British Heart Foundation and Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity deliver life-saving work. And the best part? We’re only just getting started. Omaze is building a business and culture committed to growth and creating significant social impact on a global scale.
About The Job
We're looking for a Principal Engineer to help drive innovation and shape the future of engineering at Omaze. This is a highly influential individual contributor role, working alongside our existing Principal Software Engineer to help advance technology across the organisation. You'll partner closely with the CTO, engineering and product teams to help define the long-term technical components and scaling of our platform and technology. As one of the most senior engineers in the business, you'll contribute to tackling our most complex technical challenges as well as technical investigations and prototyping new ideas and innovations. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys balancing pragmatic technical thinking with hands-on engineering, and who thrives on solving difficult problems that don't fit neatly into a sprint backlog.
What You’ll Be Doing
- Partner with Omaze's existing Principal Software Engineer to help drive innovation and new technologies.
- Work closely with the CTO and Engineering Managers to investigate key technology decisions.
- Act as a technical advisor for complex initiatives, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, secure and aligned with our long-term strategy.
- Extend the engineering organisation's capacity for ad-hoc technical investigations, proof of concepts, rapid prototyping and strategic experiments.
- Lead technical discovery for high-risk or high-ambiguity initiatives before they enter delivery.
- Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt and improve platform reliability, performance and developer experience.
- Champion modern mature software engineering practices, including automated testing, observability, CI/CD and cloud-native architecture.
- Mentor senior engineers and technical leads, helping to raise the technical capability of the wider engineering team.
- Showcase Omaze’s technical innovations internally and externally.
- Facilitate technology reviews and encourage thoughtful technical discussions across teams.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend where they can create meaningful value for Omaze.
- Foster a culture of curiosity, continuous learning and pragmatic decision-making.
About You
You'll be an experienced software engineer who has operated at Staff or Principal level and enjoys solving organisation-wide technical challenges. You'll likely bring:
- Significant experience designing and evolving large-scale systems and modern cloud-based applications.
- Genuine curiosity with creative thinking around emerging technologies and AI-assisted engineering.
- A proven track record of influencing technical strategy without relying on line management authority.
- Ability to move freely between go-fast experimentation and system-wide integrity.
- Excellent software engineering fundamentals and experience across backend systems, APIs and cloud infrastructure.
- High performance mindset, able to balance scaling challenges against product need.
- Strong architectural judgement with the ability to balance technical excellence against commercial priorities.
- The ability to quickly understand unfamiliar systems, identify root causes and propose pragmatic solutions.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- A collaborative, humble approach and a genuine desire to help others succeed.
What’s In It For You
- Generous stock options scheme
- 25 days annual leave PLUS Bank Holidays
- Private medical and dental insurance
- 9% employer pension contributions, when you contribute at least 2%
- A generous personal learning and development budget each year to use on training courses, conferences and professional memberships
- Enhanced family leave policies
- Life assurance of 4x your salary
DEI Statement
We actively seek out diversity of thought and experience to drive innovation. We welcome all backgrounds, identities, and perspectives and work hard to ensure that every Omaze employee can bring their authentic self to work at all times.
Principal Engineer employer: Omaze
Omaze is an exceptional employer located in Greater London, offering a vibrant work culture that prioritises employee well-being and growth. With generous benefits such as stock options, 25 days of annual leave, and private health insurance, we foster an environment where our Customer Experience Leaders can thrive and make a meaningful impact on customer interactions.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Engineer
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Omaze or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Omaze.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Omaze.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Omaze that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Principal Engineer
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Omaze.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Omaze and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Omaze
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Omaze uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
