Principal Engineer

London Metal Exchange; Greater London; On-site; GBP 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

London Metal Exchange is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive technical direction, architecture, and delivery of complex software platforms. You will lead hands-on engineering, mentor teams, and influence across IT and business stakeholders to build secure, scalable systems.

The role focuses on cloud-native design, microservices, Kubernetes, and secure-by-design principles, with responsibility for setting engineering standards and roadmap alignment.

Qualifications

• Significant hands-on software engineering experience in Java with 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 Kubernetes and modern practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical design discussions and reviews across teams.
• Drive engineering direction, architecture standards, and long-term technology decisions.
• Mentor engineers and influence cross-functional stakeholders.
• Ensure secure, scalable, and resilient software delivery.

Skills

Java

Microservices

Event-driven architecture

Kubernetes

Security by design

DevOps

Architectural leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

University degree in Computer Science or related STEM

Tools

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Docker

Helm

Job description

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.