Principal Engineer

The London Metal Exchange Limited; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

The London Metal Exchange Limited is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive technical direction, architecture, and delivery of complex software platforms. This senior individual contributor role provides hands-on engineering leadership without direct people management responsibility.

Responsibilities include mentoring, influencing engineering standards, and delivering secure, scalable systems while improving developer productivity and implementing best practices across teams.

Qualifications

• Significant hands-on software engineering experience in Java, building and operating distributed systems.
• Deep experience with microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures (Kafka) and integration patterns.
• Define and influence engineering strategy, architecture standards, and technical roadmaps.
• Design and build secure, cloud-native applications using modern engineering practices (Kubernetes).
• Strong knowledge of secure software development, including authentication, authorisation, encryption, and secure-by-design principles.
• Experience with Kubernetes, container platforms, and scalable production environments.
• Practical DevOps expertise across CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, automated testing, and deployment automation.
• Ability to lead technical design discussions, conduct reviews, and make pragmatic engineering decisions.
• Proven ability to work autonomously and drive initiatives from concept to delivery.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, influencing both technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership, define engineering standards, and influence strategic technology direction across the organisation.
• Support complex delivery initiatives and engage with senior stakeholders and external parties as required.
• Act as a subject matter expert, guiding architecture, security, reliability, and platform strategy across multiple domains.

Skills

Java programming

Distributed systems

Microservices

APIs

Event-driven architectures

Kubernetes

Cloud-native applications

Secure software development

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

GitOps

Automated testing

Deployment automation

Technical leadership

Education

University degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related STEM discipline

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

OpenShift

Helm

Prometheus

Job description

Principal Engineer Shift Pattern: Standard 40 Hour Week (United Kingdom) Scheduled Weekly Hours: 40 Corporate Grade: C - Vice President Reporting Line: (UK Division) Information Technology Location: UK-London Worker Type: Permanent

The Principal Engineer is a senior individual contributor responsible for driving the technical direction, architecture, design, and delivery of complex software platforms and applications. The role provides leadership through hands-on software engineering, technical expertise, mentoring, and influence across teams, without direct people management responsibility. Success in this role means building secure, scalable, and resilient software systems, establishing engineering best practices, improving developer productivity and enabling the efficient delivery of business-critical capabilities.

Academic and Professional Qualifications Required Classification: University degree in Computer Science, Engineering, related STEM discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Required Demonstrable Experience Of:

• Significant hands-on software engineering experience in Java, building and operating distributed systems.
• Deep experience with microservices, APIs, event-driven architectures (Kafka) and integration patterns
• Define and influence engineering strategy, architecture standards, and technical roadmaps.
• Design and build secure, cloud-native applications using modern engineering practices (Kubernetes),
• Strong knowledge of secure software development, including authentication, authorisation, encryption, and secure-by-design principles.
• Experience with Kubernetes, container platforms, and scalable production environments.
• Practical DevOps expertise across CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, GitOps, automated testing, and deployment automation.
• Ability to lead technical design discussions, conduct reviews, and make pragmatic engineering decisions.
• Proven ability to work autonomously and drive initiatives from concept to delivery.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, influencing both technical and non-technical audiences.

Bonus Knowledge:

• Experience in financial services, trading systems, or other regulated environments,
• Python, Scala, or other modern programming languages,
• OpenShift, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm,
• Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practice,
• Observability tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk, OpenTelemetry, or Elastic.

Personal Qualities:

• Analytical and pragmatic problem solver focused on outcomes, resiliency, and maintainability.
• Strong ownership mentality with the ability to independently lead technical initiatives.
• Collaborative and influential, building trust across engineering, product, operations, security, and business stakeholders.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to promote engineering best practices, drive continuous improvement, and share technical knowledge effectively

Corporate Grade Description Core Functional Responsibilities of a Vice President:

The successful candidate will act as a subject matter expert, providing technical leadership, defining engineering standards, influencing strategic technology direction, and supporting complex delivery initiatives across the organisation. The role is expected to engage regularly with senior stakeholders and external parties where required.

Experience Criteria of a Vice President:

Incumbents at this level possess significant engineering and industry expertise. They are recognised technical leaders capable of influencing architecture, security, reliability, platform strategy, software delivery practices, and long-term technology decisions across multiple domains.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is a publicly-traded company (HKEX Stock Code:388) and one of the world’s leading global exchange groups, offering a range of equity, derivative, commodity, fixed income and other financial markets, products and services, including the London Metals Exchange. As a superconnector and gateway between East and West, HKEX facilitates the two-way flow of capital, ideas and dialogue between China and the rest of world, through its pioneering Connect schemes, increasingly diversified product ecosystem and its deep, liquid and international markets. HKEX is a purpose-led organisation which, across its business and through the work of HKEX Foundation, seeks to connect, promote and progress its markets and the communities it supports for the prosperity of all.

Unauthorised access or use is prohibited. HKEX reserves the right to take appropriate action against any offenders.

Discover the latest career opportunities and programmes at HKEX.