Principal Engineer

Technify Talent; Newbury; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Technify Talent in Newbury is seeking a Principal Engineer to act as technical authority for complex, real-time distributed systems. This hands-on, IC role requires staying close to code and untangling hard problems with the team.

You'll own end-to-end architecture, set engineering standards, and guide AI-enabled development while tackling cross-boundary integrations. Hybrid work in Newbury with security-clearance eligibility considered.

Qualifications

• Senior technical authority with production-system experience.
• Strong background in distributed architectures and data-driven systems.
• Ability to reason across the full tech stack from data sources to UI tooling.

Responsibilities

• Own the whole-system technical picture from ingestion to end-user experience.
• Make cross-cutting architectural calls and own the outcomes.
• Set and uphold engineering standards across the team.
• Help lead AI-assisted / agentic development practices.
• Tackle major cross-boundary integrations and build-vs-buy decisions.
• Stay hands-on with prototyping, debugging, and code reviews.
• Unblock engineers and lead through technical credibility.

Skills

Distributed systems

Microservices

Event-driven architecture

Containerised deployments

Hands-on coding

Technical leadership

Job description

Location: Newbury (hybrid - reactive dependent on workload)

About the Role

We're looking for a Principal Engineer to act as technical authority and right hand to our Head of Engineering. This is a hands-on, individual-contributor role (not people management) for someone who's operated at Principal or Staff level, stays close to the code, and enjoys untangling genuinely hard, messy problems.

You'll work on complex, distributed, real-time systems that process high volumes of live data and make time-critical decisions.

What You'll Do

• Own the whole-system technical picture, from data ingestion through processing to the end-user experience
• Make the cross-cutting architectural and technical calls, and own the outcomes
• Set and uphold engineering standards across the team
• Help lead the organisation's adoption of AI-assisted / agentic development practices
• Take on the hardest cross-boundary problems: major integrations, technology choices, build-vs-buy decisions
• Stay hands-on, prototyping, spiking, debugging, and reviewing code alongside the team
• Support and unblock a strong team of engineers without formal management authority - leading through technical credibility

What We're Looking For

• Proven experience operating as a senior technical authority on complex, distributed systems - architecture you've designed that has shipped and survived contact with production
• Strong background in distributed systems, messaging/event-driven architectures, microservices, and containerised deployments
• Experience working on systems with a hardware or physical-world component (e.g. sensor integration, embedded interfaces, or similar) is a strong plus
• Comfortable reasoning across an entire technology stack, from low-level data sources through to operator-facing tools
• A track record of being the person others bring their hardest problems to
• Excellent communication skills - able to influence technical direction without formal authority
• Eligibility to obtain government security clearance is required for this role