At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead engineering strategy, mentor teams, and drive innovation in AI and software development.
- Company: Join PEXA UK, a leader in tech innovation and engineering excellence.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Dynamic role with significant influence across multiple teams and projects.
- Why this job: Shape the future of engineering and make a real impact on technology innovation.
- Qualifications: Extensive experience in software engineering, leadership, and AI technologies.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
Requirements
- You're a highly experienced technologist who combines deep technical expertise with strategic thinking and business acumen.
- You thrive on solving complex problems at scale, influencing engineering direction, and helping others grow.
- Significant experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems.
- A track record of defining technical strategy and driving organisation-wide engineering outcomes.
- Strong experience working across multiple teams, platforms and stakeholders.
- Proven ability to balance technical excellence with commercial priorities.
- Exceptional communication skills and the ability to influence at all levels of the organisation.
You'll bring deep expertise across modern software engineering practices and technologies, including:
- Node.js, Python and Kotlin.
- Modern frontend technologies.
- Cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure.
- Microservices and distributed architectures.
- Containerisation and cloud-native development.
- Security architecture and secure software development practices.
- Performance, scalability and reliability engineering.
You'll also have a strong interest in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, including:
- AI-assisted software development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cline and Amazon Q.
- Agentic AI frameworks and orchestration platforms.
- Modern approaches to context engineering and AI-enhanced developer productivity.
- Evaluating and adopting emerging AI technologies within engineering organisations.
(Desirable) Experience within financial services, property technology or other regulated industries.
(Desirable) Exposure to DevSecOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) or Platform Engineering environments.
(Desirable) Knowledge of AI frameworks and technologies including Anthropic Claude, LangGraph, Hugging Face, LiteLLM or Pydantic AI.
What the job involves
We're looking for an exceptional Principal Engineer to help shape the future of engineering at PEXA UK. This is one of the most influential technical roles within our organisation. Working closely with the UK CTO and engineering leadership team, you'll define technical strategy, drive architectural decisions, champion innovation, and help build the engineering capabilities that support our next phase of growth.
As a technical leader, you'll operate across multiple teams, influencing engineering direction at an organisational level rather than within a single product or platform. You'll mentor engineers, establish engineering standards, evaluate emerging technologies, and ensure we're building secure, scalable and resilient solutions that deliver outstanding customer outcomes. You'll also play a key role in advancing how we leverage AI across both our products and engineering practices, helping PEXA stay at the forefront of technology innovation.
Technical Strategy & Architecture
- Define and execute engineering strategy across multiple teams and domains.
- Drive architectural decisions that balance business priorities, scalability, security and long-term sustainability.
- Design solutions that support future growth and evolving customer needs.
- Identify and address technical risks across the organisation.
Engineering Excellence
- Establish and evolve engineering standards, best practices and quality frameworks.
- Drive improvements in performance, reliability, security and developer productivity.
- Champion modern software engineering principles and continuous improvement.
- Support the evolution of platform, infrastructure and service architecture.
AI & Emerging Technology
- Lead the evaluation and adoption of emerging technologies and AI capabilities.
- Drive the integration of AI tools and practices that enhance engineering effectiveness.
- Explore and implement modern AI-powered development workflows, coding assistants and agentic systems.
- Help shape PEXA's approach to AI innovation and organisational adoption.
Leadership & Mentorship
- Mentor and coach engineers across all levels, from emerging talent to senior technical leaders.
- Foster a culture of technical excellence, curiosity and continuous learning.
- Lead technical discussions, knowledge-sharing initiatives and engineering communities of practice.
- Contribute to hiring and technical assessment processes.
Collaboration & Business Impact
- Partner with Product, Design and Business leaders to align technical strategy with organisational goals.
- Translate business objectives into technical roadmaps and engineering outcomes.
- Influence decision-making at executive level through clear communication and technical insight.
- Represent PEXA externally within the technology community and industry forums.
Principal Software Engineer in Leeds employer: PEXA
At PEXA UK, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that fosters a culture of innovation and collaboration. As a Principal Software Engineer, you'll not only have the opportunity to shape our technical strategy but also benefit from a supportive environment that prioritises employee growth through mentorship and continuous learning. Located in a vibrant tech hub, we offer competitive benefits and the chance to work with cutting-edge technologies, ensuring that you remain at the forefront of the rapidly evolving AI landscape while making a meaningful impact in the financial services sector.
