Principal Engineer

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX); Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) in London is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive the technical direction, architecture, and delivery of complex software platforms. This senior individual contributor role provides hands-on engineering leadership without people management responsibilities, focusing on secure, scalable systems.

You will influence engineering standards, partner with product and security teams, and champion best practices across Kubernetes, microservices, and

Qualifications

• Significant hands-on software engineering experience in Java.
• 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.

Skills

Java

Distributed systems

Microservices

APIs

Kafka

Kubernetes

CI/CD

GitOps

Security by design

Stakeholder management

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or related STEM

Tools

Docker

OpenShift

Helm

Prometheus

Grafana

OpenTelemetry

Elastic

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.