Principal Software Engineer (Java, AWS)

Overview

We are The Very Group, and we help families on a budget get more out of life. This role is for a Principal Software Engineer responsible for designing, building and running front-end and/or back-end software solutions in an agile delivery squad. It is a hands-on role where you will design, implement and run the products and services your squad is responsible for, and help shape engineering best practices.

Responsibilities

• Full Software Development Life Cycle, including coding practices, frameworks, tech debt and operations for all engineering activities within your squad.
• Collaborate with Engineers in your Squad/Tribe, Business Analysts, Product Owners and Architects to envision, design and deliver industry leading systems.
• Identify, build, acquire, and enhance Software Engineering standards and tools; influence Leads, Architects and other Engineers to agree and adopt.
• Design and build software that balances commercial needs with delivering the future tech roadmap.
• Lead and actively participate in application and database design, data flows and detailed technical design, ensuring analysis considers technical and business impact.
• Own code quality and drive this behaviour within your team.
• Own non-functional requirements around performance, security and scalability to deliver a great customer experience; drive best practices around real-time logging, monitoring and alerting.
• Proactively improve CI and deployment processes within the squad.
• Identify obstacles, risks and issues that may impact the technical product and work with stakeholders to mitigate them.
• Adhere to policies and standards that impact solutions.
• Provide Run support for technical products within the squad.
• Mentor and support other team members to help them improve their skills.
• Champion the squad's engineering successes and best practices internally and externally.
• Stay informed about the external technology landscape and leverage this knowledge to enhance software engineering in your squad, Tribe, and across The Very Group.
• Maintain significant experience in building, integrating, maintaining and managing complex software architectures, ideally across multi-cloud environments.

Qualifications

• Significant experience of Java, Spring, AWS components, and pipeline technologies (e.g., GitLab CI).
• Demonstrable experience in supporting and guiding less experienced Software Engineers.
• Passion for code quality, testing and other engineering best practices.
• Experience building software applications with security, reliability, scalability, high availability and concurrency built-in from the outset.
• A strong collaborator and communicator.
• Computer Science degree or relevant experience.
• Hands-on software engineering experience is essential.
• Ability to share stories internally and externally to build The Very Group brand and credibility to attract and retain talent.
• Continual interest in the Technology and Engineering landscapes internally and externally.

Benefits

• Flexible, hybrid working model
• Inclusive culture and environment