Principal Network and Security Engineer in Derby

At Places for People, we hire People, not numbers! We are more interested in hiring someone that embodies our People Promises. That’s someone that does the right thing, is enthusiastic and motivated to grow, believes in Community spirit, is respectful and enjoys their work. As the UK's leading Social Enterprise, we’re dedicated to creating inclusive and thriving Communities for both our Customers and Employees.

We are recruiting a Principal Network and Security Engineer to join our Infrastructure Engineering function at a pivotal point in our technology journey. This is a new, senior technical authority role with accountability for the build, improvement, release, decommissioning and security of all network and security capabilities across our infrastructure and database platforms. You will sit at the apex of network and security engineering within the organisation, setting direction, standards and patterns that enable teams to deliver safely, consistently and at scale.

Reporting to the Head of Infrastructure Engineering, you will own the end-to-end technical lifecycle of network and security services across hybrid environments, embedding security-by-design, automation and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) as default. You will provide architectural leadership, assurance and formal peer review across the Infrastructure Engineering and Database/Linux Engineering teams, ensuring solutions meet our technical, security and regulatory standards before they are released into live service. This role is not about operational firefighting. It is about engineering excellence designing, governing and evolving resilient and secure platforms that other talented engineers can build upon with confidence.

The journey you’ll be joining involves a deliberate journey towards infrastructure excellence, delivered through Infrastructure as Code. That means repeatable builds, automated environments, strong controls, and measurable standards.

You will join a highly capable Principal Engineering community, working alongside established Principals across Cloud, Data Platform and Database Engineering. This role is the final piece of that principal engineering capability, completing our authority layer across infrastructure engineering.

To succeed, you will need to be at the top of your game technically, with deep hands-on experience of modern network and security engineering and the confidence to act as an approver, mentor and challenger to other engineers.

What you’ll be responsible for:

• Acting as the organisation's technical authority for network and security engineering
• Defining, owning and enforcing network and security standards, architectures and patterns
• Embedding security-by-design and IaC-driven delivery across infrastructure and database platforms
• Providing peer review, assurance and technical sign-off for complex or high-risk initiatives
• Driving continuous improvement in resilience, reliability, automation and recovery
• Governing the build, release and decommissioning of network and security services
• Partnering with other Principal Engineers to shape a coherent, end-to-end engineering strategy

What we’re looking for:

You’ll be a very senior engineer or technical leader who:

• Has deep expertise in network and security engineering across hybrid or cloud-first environments
• Is highly proficient in Infrastructure as Code, automation and modern engineering practices
• Is comfortable setting standards, challenging designs and holding quality lines
• Thrives working with other highly skilled engineers in a principal-level community
• Cares deeply about reliability, security and doing engineering properly

Interview process:

This role has a two-stage interview process:

• Stage 1: Online interview
• Stage 2: Face-to-face interview in Preston

For long-distance travel, we will cover reasonable travel costs.

Safer recruitment:

At Places for People, we are committed to safer recruitment. A basic DBS check is required for this role.

We are a large diverse and ambitious business, which will give you all the challenge you could wish for. We offer a comprehensive benefits package including:

• Competitive salary, with a salary review yearly
• Pension with matched contributions up to 7%
• Excellent holiday package - 35 days annual leave with the option to buy or sell leave
• Cashback plan for healthcare costs up to £500 saving per year
• A bonus scheme for all colleagues at 2%
• Training and development
• Extra perks including huge discounts and offers from shops, cinemas and much more.

What’s next?

If you meet the criteria and are ready to make the next step in your career then click apply. You will be redirected to our careers site where you can discover more about the role, read a full job description and apply directly to us.

As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we offer a guaranteed interview to candidates who are disabled, neurodiverse, or have served in the Armed Forces, provided they meet the essential criteria for the role. If you would like to be considered under this scheme, please indicate this in your application.

We are dedicated to creating a supportive and accessible recruitment process for all. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application or interview experience, please let us know.

We understand the importance of a supportive and inclusive work culture so please talk to us at interview about flexibility you may need. For this role we are open to discussing the possibility of reduced hours, flexible start and finish times or compressed hours.

Safeguarding:

At Places for People, safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. We are committed to creating safe communities for our customers and colleagues by protecting children, young people, and adults at risk from harm, abuse, and neglect. Our recruitment process includes pre-employment checks, including Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks where applicable, to promote a safe and secure working environment.

By joining Places for People, you are expected to contribute to our safeguarding culture, following our policies and reporting concerns to protect those in our communities.