Principal Software Engineer in Bournemouth

Team – UK Application Engineering

Working Pattern - Hybrid – 2 days per week in the Vitality Bournemouth, London or Stockport Office. Full time, 37.5 hours per week. We are happy to discuss flexible working!

Top 3 skills needed for this role:

• Enterprise system ownership
• Technical & architectural leadership
• Integrated cloud platforms

What this role is all about:

At Vitality, our Software Engineers power the technology behind our brilliant products and seamless customer experiences. You’ll build and maintain high‑quality software that supports a fully integrated, modern business, delivered with pace and precision.

As a Principal Software Engineer, you’ll lead development across large or multiple teams, setting technical direction and raising engineering standards. You’ll bring deep expertise in your core specialism, strong capability in a second, and be developing a third. This role has real influence, guiding teams, shaping architectural decisions, and working with senior stakeholders and third‑party partners in line with Vitality’s standards and governance.

Key Actions:

• Lead the full software development lifecycle, delivering high‑quality, user‑focused solutions from build through to release and support.
• Solve complex, business‑critical technical problems, owning root cause analysis and driving effective, scalable solutions.
• Provide technical leadership and architectural expertise, influencing designs, patterns and enterprise‑level decisions.
• Take ownership of releases and the ongoing technical performance and stability of the systems you own.
• Champion engineering standards and best practice, ensuring solutions meet Vitality and industry expectations.
• Design and deliver integrated solutions across multiple systems and teams, with a strong focus on security, performance and reliability.
• Engage and influence senior stakeholders and third‑party partners to shape requirements and deliver successful outcomes.
• Coach, mentor and develop engineers, driving continuous improvement in skills, processes and engineering capability.

What do you need to thrive?

• Strong hands‑on expertise designing, building, testing and deploying Java/JEE applications across the full development lifecycle.
• Practical experience with front‑end and supporting technologies, including CSS, HTML and/or JQuery.
• Solid database capability using PostgreSQL, with strong proficiency in SQL.
• Experience working with AWS technologies such as S3, Redis caching and similar cloud services.
• Proven understanding of authentication and security methods, including certificates, LDAP or equivalent approaches.
• Experience with messaging and streaming technologies such as AMQP or Kafka.
• Exposure to modern DevOps tooling and practices, including Jenkins, Kubernetes, Docker or equivalent.
• Demonstrable experience integrating disparate systems and technologies using Java, underpinned by strong object‑oriented design and SOLID principles.

So, what’s in it for you?

• Bonus Schemes – A bonus that regularly rewards you for your performance.
• A pension of up to 12%– We will match your contributions up to 6% of your salary.
• Our award-winning Vitality health insurance – With its own set of rewards and benefits.
• Life Assurance – Four times annual salary.

These are just some of the many perks that we offer! To view the extensive range of benefits we offer, please visit our careers page.

Fantastic Benefits. Exciting rewards. Great career opportunities!

If you are successful in your application and join us at Vitality, this is our promise to you, we will:

• Help you to be the healthiest you’ve ever been.
• Create an environment that embraces you as you are and enables you to be your best self.
• Give you flexibility on how, where and when you work.
• Help you advance your career by playing you to your strengths.
• Give you a voice to help our business grow and make Vitality a great place to be.
• Give you the space to try, fail and learn.
• Provide a healthy balance of challenge and support.
• Recognise and reward you with a competitive salary and amazing benefits.
• Be there for you when you need us.
• Provide opportunities for you to be a force for good in society.

We commit to all these things because we want you to feel that you belong, and are supported to be happy and healthy.

About Us:

We’re incredibly proud to be recognised for the culture we've created — recently being named one of Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work 2026, and in 2024 we were delighted to be awarded Top 10 Places to Work in the Sunday Times Awards.

Vitality is a multi-award-winning UK insurance brand, here to make the world a healthier, happier place. We’ve been a purpose and values-driven business from day 1- long before it became fashionable. Our core purpose is to make people healthier and enhance protect their lives. Vitality pioneered shared-value insurance. We incentivise people to live healthier longer lives – they benefit, our business benefits, and society benefits. We’re successful because we attract, develop, and retain the best people – and because we care.

Plus, you get to join our 1.7+ million members with access to our unique health insurance and healthy living programme. Just to make sure you know our products inside and out.

Ready to find out if we’re the right fit for you? We can’t wait.

Diversity & Inclusion:

At Vitality, we’re committed to diversity and inclusion because it’s good for our employees, for our business, and for society. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.

Vitality’s approach to sustainability:

Vitality is a business that drives positive change. We reward people for making and sustaining healthier choices. But healthy people also need a healthy environment. To learn more please visit our Careers page.

If we are fortunate in receiving a high volume of quality applications we may need to close this vacancy early. If you are interested, please submit your application as soon as possible.