Principal Full Stack Lead Engineer - Vice President

Here at SMBC Group, we want to help you find the next step in your career so read on to discover if this opportunity is the one for you. We like to recognise potential in our people, so we welcome your application even when your experience doesn’t perfectly align with the job description. Whilst we’ll always strive to be better, we’re proud of our inclusive culture, and encourage our applicants and colleagues to be their authentic, unique selves.

United by a sense of purpose towards our customers – to be a trusted partner for the long-term – and our universal banking platform in EMEA, SMBC Group has an international growth agenda and award‑winning products, meaning we provide exciting opportunities to work on a diverse range of projects and initiatives. We deliver a full suite of corporate finance products and solutions to our customers as well as investment banking and advisory services, and a range of innovative solutions in global capital markets. Read on to find out how you could enhance your skills and gain valuable experience, by joining us to support our clients transition to a sustainable future.

Role Summary

We’re looking for a Principal Full Stack Lead for our Cross‑Product function to join our team. We are seeking a highly experienced hands‑on Principal Full‑Stack Engineering Lead to drive modern engineering practices across a large‑scale enterprise banking technology landscape within SMBC Group. This is a senior role for a technically strong engineer who can provide deep technical expertise, engineering guidance, and hands‑on delivery support across frontend and backend (full stack) engineering initiatives. The role is focused on engineering capability, software quality, reusable engineering patterns, and modernization of engineering practices across distributed delivery teams. This position requires strong technical influence, collaboration, mentoring capability, and engineering credibility across multiple teams and stakeholders.

Business Area

Cross‑Product has strong functional leads delivering business value from in their domains, and the wider Bank has a desire to transform their technical landscape. A strong Engineer is required to uplift the engineering practices and build out a modern and sustainable set of engineering capabilities within Cross‑Product in order to keep up with the demand of the business and to align with the broader bank ambitions.

Position Description

• Full‑Stack Engineering
  • Act as a senior technical contributor to the design, development, and delivery across frontend and backend engineering initiatives.
  • Design, build, and support scalable enterprise‑grade applications and reusable engineering components.
  • Provide hands‑on engineering expertise across ReactJS frontend applications and C#/.NET backend services.
  • Support engineering teams with complex technical implementation challenges.
  • Drive improvements in software quality, maintainability, resilience, and performance.
• Frontend Engineering (ReactJS)
  • Define and promote best practices for ReactJS and TypeScript development.
  • Support development of modern, scalable, maintainable frontend applications and component architectures.
  • Contribute to reusable UI frameworks, design systems, and shared engineering libraries.
  • Improve frontend engineering standards including testing, accessibility, observability, performance optimization, and maintainability.
  • Support modernization of frontend engineering approaches across teams.
• Backend Engineering (.NET / C#)
  • Provide hands‑on expertise across C#/.NET application development and API engineering.
  • Support engineering teams with backend architecture and implementation patterns.
  • Contribute to development of scalable and supportable backend services and APIs.
  • Promote modern engineering practices including API‑first development, clean architecture, automated testing, and cloud‑ready engineering approaches.
  • Support modernization and simplification of legacy engineering patterns where appropriate.
• Engineering Standards & Software Quality
  • Contribute to definition and implementation of engineering standards, coding practices, and reusable patterns.
  • Promote high‑quality engineering practices such as automated testing, code reviews, static analysis, secure coding, and CI/CD adoption.
  • Help improve consistency of engineering practices across teams and delivery partners.
  • Support implementation of modern SDLC practices aligned with enterprise governance requirements.
• DevSecOps & SDLC Collaboration
  • Work closely with the Architectural and Governance DevSecOps teams to ensure applications align with enterprise delivery standards and pipeline requirements.
  • Support engineering adoption of GitLab‑based CI/CD practices.
  • Contribute to secure‑by‑design and shift‑left engineering practices.
  • Help ensure applications are operationally supportable, observable, and deployment ready.
• Technical Mentoring & Engineering Enablement
  • Provide technical mentoring and guidance to engineers across multiple teams.
  • Support onboarding and capability uplift of internal and vendor engineering teams.
  • Contribute to internal engineering documentation, standards, and reference implementations.
  • Help foster strong engineering culture and continuous improvement practices.

Knowledge, Skills, and Experience Required

Significant hands‑on experience in software engineering within large enterprise environments.

Required Technical Skills

• ReactJS
• TypeScript
• JavaScript
• C#/.NET
• REST APIs
• Distributed application development
• Experience with GitLab CI/CD pipelines and engineering workflow modernization.
• Experience designing and building scalable enterprise applications.
• Strong understanding of modern frontend engineering practices and component‑based architectures.
• Strong understanding of backend engineering and API design principles.
• Experience with modern SDLC practices including CI/CD and automated testing.
• Ability to work effectively across multiple engineering teams and stakeholders.
• Strong technical problem‑solving and communication skills.

Financial Sector Experience

Deep experience working within a highly regulated financial services institution, demonstrating understanding of the pace and complexity of financial organisations.

People Leading

Proven ability to support the ambition of large‑scale cultural and technological change across diverse and sometimes technically challenging product teams.

Desirable Experience

• Experience with Kubernetes or OpenShift platforms.
• Experience with microservices and event‑driven architectures.
• Experience with cloud‑native engineering practices.
• Familiarity with DevSecOps tooling and secure software delivery practices.
• Experience working with distributed global delivery teams and vendors.

Methodologies

Experience working in Agile, Scaled Agile Framework and other SDLC methodology environments.

Competencies

• Customer Focus
• Driving Change
• Driving Results
• Embraces Diversity
• Enterprise Leadership
• Judgement and Decision Making
• Risk Management
• Strategic and Visionary
• Trust and Integrity

What we offer

For all the expertise and experience you bring to help us make a difference, it’s only sustainable if we support you to build your career and be your best self so we offer competitive company benefits, centred around promoting positive well‑being and work‑life balance. We also believe in fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment, where all team members perspectives and contributions are valued. Initiatives in place which promote a diverse and inclusive culture and healthy work life balance include hybrid working, Sport & Social Clubs and Diversity and Inclusion networks.

• Hybrid and flexible working
• Competitive paid leave days
• Benefits to support your physical wellbeing, including private medical insurance and life and invalidity insurance
• Various policies to support your mental wellbeing, including a robust behavioural health network with counselling and coaching services
• Access a wide range of learning and development opportunities and career progression opportunities
• Ambitious remuneration package

So, if you like a challenge and want to continuously grow and develop in a role where you will be supported along the way by a dynamic and diverse team, apply today!

We recognise our role as a bank to support social change and welcome all applications, including those from groups often under‑represented in financial services. We value the uniqueness of professional and personal backgrounds and perspectives as they play a vital role in continuing the sustainable growth of our organisation. We’ll ensure reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process are offered due to a disability or long‑term condition whenever requested.