Hybrid Principal Software Engineer — Platform & AI

8Thlightrebuild; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

8th Light is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive platform engineering work for client engagements in a hybrid London setting. You will connect long-term technical vision with what ships, balancing architectural soundness with practical delivery across diverse stacks.

You will lead modernization efforts, mentor teams, and advance AI/ML integrations while aligning technical choices with client outcomes and business goals.

Qualifications

• Proven experience building production-grade platforms and reusable foundations.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure, authentication, and observability.
• Experience delivering consulting engagements across languages and ecosystems.
• Led modernization and replatforming aligning legacy systems with business needs.
• Mentor teams and drive knowledge sharing.

Responsibilities

• Rapidly build trust with clients by demonstrating technical expertise.
• Lead platform strategy and delivery across diverse platform types.
• Balance technology choices with deadline-driven delivery.
• Advise on architecture, scalability and platform evolution.
• Collaborate on ML lifecycle systems from data to deployment and monitoring.
• Drive innovation by surfacing new technical approaches.

Skills

Platform engineering

AI systems

Software architecture

Mentorship

Client engagements

Job description

8th Light is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive platform engineering work for client engagements in a hybrid London setting. You will connect long-term technical vision with what ships, balancing architectural soundness with practical delivery across diverse stacks.

You will lead modernization efforts, mentor teams, and advance AI/ML integrations while aligning technical choices with client outcomes and business goals.