Principal Engineer

Specsavers; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Specsavers is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead and shape the technical direction of our digital platform for the US market. The role combines hands-on coding, architecture reviews, and delivery leadership across frontend, backend, and cloud infrastructure.

You will partner with Product, Design, and Architecture leaders to drive performance, maintainability, and customer experience. Ideal candidates are senior engineers who thrive on solving complex problems, defining engineering standards,

Qualifications

• Experience as a Principal Engineer or senior technical leader in a high-growth tech business.

Responsibilities

• Define technical direction and engineering standards while remaining hands-on.
• Write production code, review architecture, and ship features with delivery teams.
• Lead and mentor a small UK engineering team and collaborate with Product/Design leadership.

Job description

Are you a Principal Engineer who loves being hands-on, solving complex technical problems, and building products that customers use every day?

At Specsavers, we're building something truly exciting. Our IDOC business operates with the pace, innovation, and ownership mindset of a startup, backed by the investment and stability of a global organisation. We're looking for a Principal Engineer to play a key role in shaping the future of our digital platform as we continue to scale and evolve our products across the US market.

This isn't a traditional leadership role where you're managing from a distance.

We're specifically looking for a highly technical engineering leader whose primary passion remains engineering. Someone who still enjoys writing production code, solving difficult technical challenges, reviewing architecture, and working directly with teams to build great software. You'll help define technical direction and engineering standards while remaining deeply involved in implementation, delivery, debugging, and production operations.

Our products span frontend applications, backend services, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and digital commerce capabilities. We're particularly interested in candidates with strong frontend engineering expertise who can help drive improvements in architecture, performance, maintainability, quality, accessibility, and customer experience across our digital products.

You'll thrive in this role if you're equally comfortable discussing long-term architecture strategy and rolling your sleeves up to ship production code. One day you might be designing platform capabilities and shaping engineering standards, the next reviewing code, troubleshooting production issues, or delivering new features alongside the team. You'll work closely with Product, Design, Development, and Architecture leaders to turn ambitious ideas into exceptional customer experiences.

We're looking for someone who has experience as a Principal Engineer, Staff Engineer, Lead Engineer, or senior technical leader within a high-growth technology business. You'll bring a strong track record of building and scaling modern SaaS products, deep engineering expertise across modern web technologies, and the ability to move comfortably between strategy, architecture, and hands‑on delivery.

You’ll also have the opportunity to support and develop a small UK engineering team. While people leadership forms part of the role, the focus remains firmly on technical leadership, engineering excellence, product delivery, and building great software. This role is perfect for someone who wants to lead through technical expertise rather than moving into a purely management-focused career.

If you're excited by the idea of joining a startup‑like environment within Specsavers, helping shape the future of our US digital products, influencing technical strategy, and remaining at the heart of engineering delivery, we'd love to hear from you. Join us as Principal Engineer and help build the next generation of digital experiences for our customers.