At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and build high-quality software while leading AI integration projects.
- Company: Join a dynamic tech company connecting millions globally.
- Benefits: Enjoy 25 days leave, gym membership, and health perks.
- Other info: Mentor engineers and drive innovation in a supportive culture.
- Why this job: Make an impact with cutting-edge AI technology in a collaborative environment.
- Qualifications: 10+ years in software engineering with strong leadership skills.
The predicted salary is between 65250 - 79750 £ per year.
Principal Software Engineer
Department
Engineering
Employment Type
Full Time
Location
Manchester, UK
Reporting To
- Daniel Wardin
- Description
Interact provides enterprise-grade intranet software that connects over three million employees to leading global names like Levi's, Domino’s, Teva Pharmaceuticals, and Technicolor.
Our team of customer-focused problem solvers are passionate about helping organizations to communicate better.
We do this together by constantly working to improve every service and product we offer.
With offices in Manchester, New York, Dubai, Tulsa, and Warsaw, we operate across North America, EMEA, and Australia.
A core part of the role is end-to-end execution of AI integrations into our existing ecosystem, including architecture, implementation, governance, and enablement across squads.
You will combine deep technical capability with strong leadership influence—mentoring engineers, guiding technical strategy, and personally contributing high-quality code across our stack (C#, ASP.
NET, React JS, Node. js, SQL Server, AWS).
A little about you...
- 10+ years of professional engineering experience, including designing and delivering large-scale, distributed systems.
- Proven track record of hands-on development across back-end (C#, ASP. NET) and front-end (React JS) environments.
- Extensive experience integrating AI/LLM technologies into production environments.
- Strong competence with SQL Server, T-SQL, performance tuning, caching (Redis), Elastic Search/Open Search, and distributed systems patterns.
- Experience operating in Agile/Scrum and collaborating closely with Product, Delivery, QA, and Dev Ops.
- Strong Git and CI/CD experience (Bitbucket, Team City, Octopus Deploy).
- Real-world experience designing secure, scalable, resilient systems on AWS.
- Expert understanding of OOP, SOLID principles, design patterns, data structures, and algorithms.
- Deep knowledge of asynchronous processing, concurrency, distributed architectures, and high-volume transactional systems.
- Working knowledge of Docker, containerised workloads, and cloud-native best practices.
- Understanding of modern AI integration patterns: embeddings, vectors, RAG, prompt engineering, evaluation techniques, model safety.
- Strong familiarity with Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence).
- Hands-on technical leader with a bias for action and ownership.
- Excellent communicator who can simplify complex systems for technical and non-technical audiences.
- Pragmatic, user-centric problem solver with strong attention to detail.
- Curious, innovative, and proactive in driving the organisation forward.
- Collaborative, empathetic team player who uplifts others.
- Strategic thinker who can balance immediate delivery with long-term architecture needs.
About the role...
- Design, build, and ship high-quality, production-grade software using C#, ASP. NET, React JS, Node. js, SQL Server, and AWS services.
- Serve as a hands-on architect/engineer— writing foundational code, delivering end to end features, validating technical approaches through prototypes and spikes, and leading design discussions.
- Maintain deep familiarity with our codebase and actively contribute to critical, high-impact features and refactoring initiatives.
- Define and uphold engineering standards across squads, including SOLID, design patterns, secure coding, and observability principles.
- Evaluate technical trade-offs, performance implications, and long-term maintainability to steer architectural direction.
- Lead and implement AI-powered features across Interact’s ecosystem, to fuel value creation (eg. intelligent search, summarisation, classification, recommendation systems, generative capabilities, experience augmentation, insights generation, etc.)
- Develop secure and scalable AI integration layers using modern patterns (embeddings, RAG, vector databases, prompt orchestration, evaluation frameworks).
- Build and maintain AI-related services, APIs, and backend components—including telemetry, evaluation pipelines, and guardrails.
- Establish best practices for responsible AI, including privacy, compliance, red-teaming, fallback logic, and model governance.
- Partner with Product to prioritise AI initiatives and define measurable success metrics for user experience and business impact.
- Create reusable AI components, SDKs, documentation, and guidelines for wider engineering use.
- Lead cross-team initiatives, unblock complex technical challenges, and ensure architectural alignment across the organisation.
- Work closely with Product & Delivery Managers to refine requirements, shape roadmaps, and ensure predictable delivery.
- Break down complex problems and guide teams through execution - participating directly in coding when needed.
- Champion testing excellence: author and maintain unit tests, integration tests, and Playwright E2E tests.
- Work closely with Dev Ops to optimise CI/CD pipelines (Team City, Octopus Deploy) and improve deployment reliability.
- Conduct in-depth code reviews, provide hands-on pairing, and ensure code quality across multiple squads.
- Optimise performance across APIs, databases, caching, distributed systems, and front-end rendering.
- Maintain hands-on involvement in resolving complex production issues, running post-mortems, and designing long-term solutions.
- Develop secure-by-default features and collaborate with Security to ensure AI and platform components meet compliance requirements.
- Contribute to scalable AWS infrastructure design and cost-efficient resource usage.
- Mentor engineers of all levels - especially Senior and Staff engineers to elevate technical thinking and delivery quality.
- Facilitate design clinics, architecture reviews, and knowledge-sharing sessions, including AI education and literacy.
- Contribute to hiring pipelines through technical interviews and role calibrations.
- Stay ahead of industry trends in AI, cloud, web engineering, and developer tooling.
- Initiate and lead innovation spikes, proofs-of-concept, technical evaluations, and platform enhancements.
- Promote continuous improvement and foster a culture of curiosity and craftsmanship.
Benefits
- 25 days annual leave (with the option to buy and sell additional days)
- Cycle to work scheme
- Access to Learning & Development platform
- Life Insurance
- Auto Enrolment Pensions
- Healthshield (Cashback on dental check-ups and fillings, eye tests, physiotherapy, prescriptions and much more
- Reimburse for usage of personal mobile phone
- Free Gym membership and Free Friday lunch for office based staff
- #J-18808-Ljbffr
Principal Software Engineer in Manchester employer: Sideways 6
Interact is an exceptional employer located in Manchester, offering a vibrant work culture that values respect and honesty for all employees, regardless of their experience level. With a strong focus on employee growth, we provide extensive learning and development opportunities, alongside competitive benefits such as 25 days annual leave, health cashback schemes, and free gym memberships. Join us to be part of a team that prioritises collaboration and continuous improvement while safeguarding vital information assets.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Software Engineer in Manchester
✨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 Sideways 6 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 Sideways 6.
✨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 Sideways 6.
✨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 Sideways 6 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 Software Engineer in Manchester
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 Sideways 6.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Sideways 6 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 Sideways 6
✨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 Sideways 6 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.
