Principal Engineer

Bazaarvoice; Belfast City District; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Bazaarvoice in Belfast, UK, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the agentic transformation and scale our AI-enabled product stack. You will influence architecture, drive autonomous agent concepts, and work across global teams to advance our engineering culture.

The role combines hands-on coding and architectural leadership, focusing on AI-powered workflows, cloud-first delivery on AWS, and hiring and mentoring top engineering talent in a fast-growing European hub.

Qualifications

• 15+ years software engineering experience.
• 8+ years at world-class product companies.
• 10+ years full-stack software development.
• 5+ years SaaS product architecture experience.
• 5+ years cloud experience.
• Strong understanding of LLMs, prompt engineering and AI agent frameworks.
• Proven cross-geography collaboration and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Spearhead agentic transformation leadership and architecture.
• Remain hands-on to code, prototype, and architect agent workflows.
• Own security, quality, scale, and performance of Belfast hub products.
• Oversee AWS-based architectures and delivery.
• Influence global product development architectures and standards.
• Champion AI and automation roadmaps across the org.
• Develop prototypes and proofs-of-concept for AI/agentic tech.
• Assist in recruiting, mentoring, and developing talent for an agent-driven ecosystem.

Skills

15+ years software engineering

8+ years product companies

Full-Stack development

SaaS architecture

Cloud expertise

Agentic & AI vision

Communication & collaboration

Tools

AWS

LangChain

Claude Code

Vector databases

Job description

At Bazaarvoice, we create smart shopping experiences. Through our expansive global network, product-passionate community & enterprise technology, we connect thousands of brands and retailers with billions of consumers. Our solutions enable brands to connect with consumers and collect valuable user-generated content, at an unprecedented scale. This content achieves global reach by leveraging our extensive and ever-expanding retail, social & search syndication network. And we make it easy for brands & retailers to gain valuable business insights from real-time consumer feedback with intuitive tools and dashboards. The result is smarter shopping: loyal customers, increased sales, and improved products.

The problem we are trying to solve : Brands and retailers struggle to make real connections with consumers. It's a challenge to deliver trustworthy and inspiring content in the moments that matter most during the discovery and purchase cycle. The result? Time and money spent on content that doesn't attract new consumers, convert them, or earn their long-term loyalty.

Our brand promise : closing the gap between brands and consumers.

Founded in 2005, Bazaarvoice is headquartered in Austin, Texas with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

It’s official: Bazaarvoice is a Great Place to Work in the US , Australia , India , Lithuania, France, Germany and the UK!

The Ideal Candidate

We are looking for a top-notch Principal Software Engineer to join the Bazaarvoice team in Belfast, UK. We are big believers in teamwork, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.

The ideal candidate is self-motivated, extremely curious, a strong communicator, patient, and highly enthusiastic about driving cross-team collaboration to meet our growth objectives.

Beyond designing and implementing traditional distributed, fault-tolerant systems, you will be a visionary champion leading our agentic transformation. This means you will fundamentally shift our engineering culture and architecture from a paradigm of engineers writing manual code to an advanced model where engineers design, orchestrate, and manage autonomous AI agents.

Requirements and Responsibilities:

• Agentic Transformation Leadership: Spearhead the transition from traditional code generation to agentic workflows. Define the architecture, guardrails, and patterns for how engineers build and manage AI agents to automate and scale our development lifecycle.
• Individual Contributor: Remain hands-on and able to code, build prototypes, and architect agent workflows as needed.
• Technical Ownership: Assume technical ownership of the security, quality, scale, and performance of products delivered from our Belfast hub (collaborating closely with our global engineering teams).
• Cloud Architecture: Oversee architectures, designs, and delivery of products built and deployed on AWS.
• Global Influence: Actively influence architectures, designs, and standards for the global product development team.
• Innovation & Roadmaps: Champion innovation and continuous improvements across the engineering organization , identifying and creating technology roadmaps that lean heavily into AI and automation.
• Prototyping: Develop prototypes and proofs‑of‑concept in support of AI/agentic technology recommendations.
• Talent & Mentorship: Assist in recruiting and hiring top talent per organizational needs , while guiding, mentoring, and evaluating highly capable technical talent to prepare them for an agent‑driven ecosystem.

Required Skills:

• 15+ years of overall relevant software engineering experience, with 8+ years specifically within world‑class product companies.
• Full-Stack Capabilities: 10+ years of strong full‑stack software development experience.
• SaaS Architecture: 5+ years of experience architecting, designing, and building high‑scale, high‑performance SaaS products.
• Cloud Expertise: 5+ years of cloud experience.
• Agentic & AI Vision: Proven understanding of Large Language Models (LLMs), prompt engineering, vector databases, and AI agent frameworks (e.g., Claude Code, LangChain, custom agent orchestration), with a clear vision of how to shift engineering from manual coding to agent management.
• Communication & Collaboration: Strong communication and influencing skills across multiple geographic locations , alongside a proven track record of cross‑functional collaboration.

Nice to Haves:

• Exposure to Big Data environments – data processing / analytics.
• Experience working within the Ecommerce space.

#LI-EM1

Why join Bazaarvoice?

Customer is key

We see our own success through our customers’ outcomes.

We approach every situation with a customer first mindset.

Transparency & IntegrityBuilds Trust

We believe in the power of authentic feedback because it’s in our DNA.

We do the right thing when faced with hard choices. Transparency and trust accelerate our collective performance.

Passionate Pursuit of Performance

Our energy is contagious, because we hire for passion, drive & curiosity.

We love what we do, and because we’re laser focused on our mission.

Innovation over Imitation

We seek to innovate as we are not content with the status quo.

We embrace agility and experimentation as an advantage.

Stronger Together

We bring our whole selves to the mission and find value in diverse perspectives.

We champion what’s best for Bazaarvoice before individuals or teams.

As a stronger company we build a stronger community.

Want to see our culture in action? Explore our global Linkedin Life Page, Life at Bazaarvoice to see the bigger picture, or visit our EMEA Life Page to meet our regional teams and see what life is like in our local offices.

Commitment to diversity and inclusion

Bazaarvoice provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all team members and applicants according to their experience, talent, and qualifications for the job without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, age, disability, sex (including pregnancy, gender stereotyping, and marital status), sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military/veteran status, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local law in every location in which the company has facilities. Bazaarvoice believes that diversity and an inclusive company culture are key drivers of creativity, innovation and performance. Furthermore, a diverse workforce and the maintenance of an atmosphere that welcomes versatile perspectives will enhance our ability to fulfill our vision of creating the world’s smartest network of consumers, brands, and retailers.

Please note: The successful candidate will be required to undergo a basic AccessNI check prior to starting.