Principal Engineer

Principal Engineer – Manchester (Hybrid) – £(Apply online only)k + Package Ever joined a company after the architecture decisions were already locked in… and spent the next two years working around them? This isn’t that. This is a rare chance to come in before the patterns are set — helping shape how a large, mission-critical B2B platform is built as three brand-new squads spin up. It’s greenfield where it matters, pragmatic where it has to be, and aimed squarely at engineers who care about how systems evolve, not just shipping the next ticket. What you’ll be doing • Defining architecture patterns used across multiple squads and services. • Designing and evolving a complex, workflow-heavy platform at serious scale. • Leading cross-team technical initiatives (APIs, cloud patterns, DevOps). • Partnering with product and delivery to shape technical direction — not just react to it. • Mentoring senior engineers and tech leads, raising the bar across teams. • Championing automation, observability, and “we build it, we run it”. • Tackling systemic problems early — scalability, reliability, developer experience. • Exploring AI and modern tooling to improve how teams build and ship. Hands-on when it counts. Strategic when it matters. What you’ll need • Experience operating at Principal / Staff Engineer level in complex environments. • Strong TypeScript / JavaScript background. • Solid experience with Docker and Kubernetes. • Knowledge of a high-performance language (Go is ideal). • Experience designing distributed, cloud-native systems AWS • Strong grasp of API-first, event-driven and microservices architecture. • Comfortable influencing across teams without formal authority. • A pragmatic mindset — balancing technical quality with real business outcomes. Why it’s worth your time You won’t be bolted onto a broken setup and asked to “fix it quietly”. You’ll be: * shaping how new squads work from day one * setting standards others actually follow * working on systems where scale, reliability and compliance genuinely matter There’s autonomy, trust, and a clear mandate to do this properly — not just quickly. If you’re a Principal Engineer who enjoys shaping platforms, mentoring strong engineers, and leaving systems better than you found them — this one’s worth a chat