Principal Software Engineer - 3 month contract in London

This is a contract role for 3 months, starting in May ideally. At Collinson, we don’t just build technology — we power the experiences behind some of the world’s most recognised travel, financial services, and retail brands. Our solutions help global brands acquire, engage, and retain millions of customers worldwide. Our flagship product is Priority Pass, the world’s leading airport experiences programme, trusted by travellers across more than 170 countries.

Key clients include Mastercard, American Express, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, LATAM, Flying Blue, Accor, EasyJet, HSBC, Chase, HDFC. Our mission is focused on doing good beyond profit, which for us means we seek out opportunities for our people to share in our success and that we give back to the communities and people within which we work. Never short of ambition, the success of our business is delivered through the diverse and talented team of over 2,200 global colleagues.

We are now looking for a visionary Principal Engineer to help define the next generation of our platform.

Why this role matters

This is more than a leadership position. It’s an opportunity to influence the architecture, scalability, and future direction of a truly global technology ecosystem. You’ll lead the technical vision for one of the most critical pillars in our Engineering organisation, our API platform, driving innovation across synchronous and asynchronous services built with REST, GraphQL, Kafka, and cloud-native technologies. You’ll work hands‑on with modern engineering tools and practices, partnering with talented squads to solve complex distributed systems challenges at scale. From AI‑driven engineering initiatives to highly observable event‑driven architectures, this is a role for someone who thrives on building exceptional systems and empowering exceptional teams.

What you will be doing

• Defining the architectural vision for our API ecosystem
• Leading the design and development of scalable, cloud‑native distributed systems
• Building high‑throughput event‑driven services using Kafka
• Driving engineering excellence across security, observability, performance, and maintainability
• Mentoring and coaching engineers and technical leaders across multiple squads
• Collaborating closely with Product, Delivery, and Engineering leadership to shape strategic technical decisions
• Championing modern development practices including TDD, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and automated testing
• Exploring and embedding AI‑powered engineering capabilities into our workflows and platform

You’ll be working with a modern, forward‑thinking stack including:

• TypeScript (Node.js & React)
• GraphQL & REST APIs
• Kafka
• GitHub Actions
• DataDog
• Salesforce integrations

What we are looking for

You’re a technically exceptional engineering leader who still loves being close to the code.

What you bring

• Proven experience architecting large‑scale distributed systems in the cloud
• Deep expertise in APIs, event‑driven architectures, and containerised applications
• Strong knowledge of AWS and modern DevOps practices
• Experience leading engineering teams and influencing technical direction across squads
• A passion for software craftsmanship, clean architecture, and scalable design
• A mentoring mindset and a collaborative leadership style
• Curiosity around AI and emerging engineering technologies
• Experience with Salesforce or enterprise CRM ecosystems is a strong advantage.

What Collinson Offers

• Flexible and hybrid working options
• Work from anywhere – 8 weeks a year
• Generous parental leave and family‑friendly policies
• Career development, mentorship, and training
• A supportive, inclusive culture with employee resource groups and diversity initiatives.

Collinson is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes differences in all their forms including: colour, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, neurodivergence, family status, age, individuals with disabilities and people from all backgrounds, cultures and experiences as we strongly believe this contributes to our on‑going success. We are focused on continually evolving our purpose driven, high performing culture, providing an environment where our people have the opportunity to achieve their full potential and do interesting and meaningful work. Our company values are: Take Action, Do the right thing, One team and Be insight led. These help guide everything we do internally in terms of how we think, act and interact, right through to how we deliver value to our customers and clients.

In your application, please feel free to note which pronouns you use (For example - she/her/hers, he/him/his, they/them/theirs, etc). If you need any extra support throughout the interview process, then please email us at.