Principal Engineer – Distributed Platforms | Java / Spring Boot / Cloud

This is an opportunity to help lead a genuine platform transformation — not maintain legacy systems.

We’re building the next generation of a large-scale operational platform and are looking for a Principal Engineer who wants to shape architecture, influence engineering culture, and drive modern software practices at scale.

You’ll play a leading role in evolving a complex monolithic environment into a modern distributed architecture while helping define how engineering teams build, collaborate, and deliver moving forward.

This role is ideal for someone who still loves solving hard technical problems hands-on, but also wants ownership, influence, and the ability to drive meaningful change across a growing engineering organisation.

Why This Role Stands Out

This is not a passive architecture role.

You’ll be technically leading from the front — influencing platform strategy, mentoring engineers, driving architectural decisions, and contributing directly to critical engineering initiatives.

You’ll help shape:

• the future distributed systems architecture
• modern cloud platform capability
• developer experience and engineering standards
• AI-assisted and agentic engineering practices
• how teams scale and deliver software effectively

The environment is heavily focused on modernisation, platform evolution, and engineering uplift, with significant investment across the platform function and multiple new engineering hires planned.

If you enjoy building modern systems, introducing new ideas, and solving complex scaling and architectural problems, this is the kind of role where you can have real impact.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead the evolution from monolithic applications into scalable distributed microservices architecture
• Drive architectural and technical decision-making across core platform systems
• Design and build modern cloud-native applications using Java and Spring Boot
• Work across complex distributed systems challenges including scalability, resilience, performance, observability, and maintainability
• Partner closely with engineering, product, and business stakeholders to shape long-term platform direction
• Lead technical discovery, proof-of-concepts, and critical engineering initiatives
• Mentor engineers and uplift technical capability across teams
• Improve developer experience, engineering efficiency, and platform tooling
• Champion modern software engineering approaches including AI-assisted and agentic development workflows
• Bring new ideas, techniques, and engineering practices into the organisation

What We’re Looking For

• Strong hands-on experience building modern Java applications using Spring Boot
• Deep understanding of distributed systems and microservices architecture
• Experience modernising or decomposing monolithic applications into scalable distributed platforms
• Strong cloud engineering capability across AWS and/or GCP
• Experience designing resilient, high-performing, maintainable software systems
• Understanding of frontend application architecture with exposure to Angular or React environments
• Strong technical leadership capability with the ability to influence engineers and stakeholders alike
• Passion for improving engineering practices, developer experience, and technical quality
• Curiosity around emerging engineering tooling, AI-assisted development, and agentic coding practices
• A proactive mindset with strong ownership and accountability
• Someone who enjoys solving difficult technical problems and driving change through engineering leadership

The Environment

• Modern platform transformation initiative
• Large-scale distributed systems challenges
• Growing engineering organisation with continued investment
• Strong focus on engineering quality and platform evolution
• Opportunity to influence technical direction at scale
• Hybrid and flexible working environment
• High-trust culture with genuine technical ownership

This is the kind of role suited to engineers who want more than just delivery responsibility — people who want to influence architecture, shape engineering culture, and help define how modern software engineering is practiced within a growing platform environment.