Principal Engineer

Sanderson Recruitment; Remote; GBP 80,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services organisation is looking for a Principal Engineer to guide architectural strategy and facilitate the transition from legacy systems to cloud-based solutions. This influential role focuses on documenting high-level architectures and best practices, mentoring engineering teams, and leading cloud-native architecture decisions. The position offers a competitive salary up to £95,000, along with a remote-first working model. Applicants must be UK residents to be considered.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in leading large-scale legacy transformation.
• Strong background in cloud-native design and distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of security and networking principles.
• Ability to influence and manage stakeholders effectively.

Responsibilities

• Define high-level solution architectures and document trade-offs.
• Lead cloud-native architecture decisions, including AWS services.
• Mentor engineers and contribute to skills development.
• Promote documentation practices and data-driven decision-making.

Skills

Leading large-scale legacy transformation

Cloud migration initiatives

Modern architectural patterns

Distributed systems

Security and networking knowledge

Excellent communication skills

Stakeholder management

Coaching skills

Documentation skills

Job description

Sanderson are working with a leading financial services organisation that puts customers at the centre of its business. The company is going through a period of impressive growth across their technology team, creating opportunity to work on challenging projects and contribute to the development of its digital platforms.

As a Principal Engineer, you will act as a senior technical leader within the organisation, shaping architecture strategy and guiding engineering teams through the transition from legacy systems to modern, scalable cloud-based solutions. This is a highly influential, non-coding role focused on architectural direction, technical governance, and enabling teams to deliver high-quality, future-ready solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and document high-level solution architectures, clearly outlining trade-offs, risks, and dependencies.
• Provide architectural principles, standards, and guardrails that empower teams to design and deliver robust solutions.
• Lead and influence cloud-native architecture decisions, including container orchestration and AWS services.
• Champion best practices across security, observability, logging, networking, and system design.
• Promote strong documentation practices, including Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), solution designs, and architecture diagrams.
• Foster a culture of data-driven decision-making, defining metrics that support continuous improvement across teams.
• Partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to align technical strategy with business priorities.
• Mentor and support engineers, contributing to capability uplift and long-term skills development.
• Identify opportunities to improve developer experience, efficiency, and tooling across the engineering function.

Skills & Experience

• Proven experience leading large-scale legacy transformation and cloud migration initiatives.
• Strong background in modern architectural patterns, cloud-native design, and distributed systems.
• Deep understanding of security, networking, observability, and end-to-end system flows.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at all levels.
• Experience coaching teams and setting technical direction without direct line management.
• Ability to balance technical trade-offs, cost considerations, and delivery constraints.
• Strong documentation skills with a pragmatic, collaborative approach.

This is a full-time, permanent role offering a starting salary up to £95,000 (DOE) and a remote-first working model.

Please Note : You must be a UK resident to apply for this role.

Apply now or email

for more details.

Reasonable Adjustments

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.

If you need any help or adjustments during the recruitment process for any reason please let us know when you apply or talk to the recruiters directly so we can support you.