Principal Engineer (Backend)

Legal Counsel - 12 month FTC at Rightmove Greenhouse; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private Medical Insurance

Pension and Life Insurance

27 days holiday

Hybrid working

Job summary

Rightmove is hiring a Principal Engineer to lead engineering and architecture across the consumer domain. You will drive scalable system design, shape architectural direction, and partner with product managers to balance business and user value.

You’ll mentor engineers, promote quality practices, and help grow the technical community while improving platform health and delivery across teams.

Qualifications

• Experience designing and delivering complex systems with significant business impact.
• Experience operating across multiple teams or domains.
• Interest in AI-driven development and practical judgement to add value.
• Strong communication and leadership across teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of scalable, resilient systems across domain boundaries.
• Shape the architectural direction of the consumer domain in line with strategy.
• Identify reuse opportunities, performance improvements, and smarter tech decisions.
• Partner with Engineering and Product Managers for scoping and risk mitigation.
• Unblock teams by simplifying complexity and guiding delivery patterns.
• Influence outcomes with product awareness and user value focus.
• Champion quality, observability, and operational readiness.
• Mentor senior engineers and grow the internal technical community.

Skills

Engineering leadership

System design

Java

Spring Boot

Architectural direction

Mentoring

Job description

Our vision is to give everyone the belief they can make their move. We aim to make moving simpler, by giving everyone the best place to turn to and return to for access to the tools, expertise, trust, and belief to make it happen.

We’re home to the UK’s largest choice of properties and are the go-to destination for millions of people planning their next move, reading the latest industry news, or just browsing what's on the market.

Location: London office / Hybrid (2 days per week in the office)
Reporting to: Head of Engineering
Domain: Consumer

The Role…
Rightmove's consumer product-domainbuildswhat most people picture when they think of Rightmove. Property search, listing pages, saved searches, maps, alerts, valuations. It gets an enormous amount of traffic,it'sused at one of the most stressful moments in people's lives, and around 60 engineers work across it every day.

We're hiring a Principal Engineer into this domain.This is a senior, cross-domain role for someone who wants to drive impact across multiple teams,deepen our architectural thinking, and help us raise the bar on technical execution, product delivery,and long-term platform health.

Your technical grounding is in Java and Spring Boot, andyou'regenuinely expert there. But you think and operate well beyond your specialism: across front-end, mobile, data, infrastructure, and delivery.You'recomfortable challenging assumptions at any layer of the stack, and you connect technical decisions to real user and business outcomes without needing to be prompted.

You’llbring a mix of deep technicalexpertise, strong product instincts, and collaborative leadership,acting as a trusted partner to engineering managers, product leads, and domain heads.

Head to our tech blog to find out more about our engineering culture!

What you’ll be doing…

Engineering & Architecture Leadership

• Lead the design of systems that are scalable, resilient, and fit for purpose, particularly where complexity cuts across team boundaries.
• Shape the architectural direction of the consumer domain in alignment with our strategic goals.
• Identify areas where we can increase reuse, improve performance, or make smarter technology decisions.

Delivery Impact

• Partner with Engineering and Product Managers to guide scoping, sequencing, and risk mitigation for large, high-value initiatives.
• Unblock teams by spotting better ways forward, helping shift delivery patterns or simplifying complexity.
• Influence outcomes through strong product awareness and a focus on business and user value.

Standards & Practices

• Champion engineering quality, from code structure and testing practices through to observability and operational readiness.
• Spot patterns and inefficiencies in how we build software, collaborate and help teams adopt better ways of working.
• Influence how we think about platform services, shared capabilities, and long-term sustainability of our tech estate.

Coaching & Influence

• Be a source of mentorship and thought partnership for senior engineers and tech leads.
• Model excellent communication, collaboration, and leadership behaviours across teams.
• Help us grow our internal technical community, supporting better knowledge sharing and cross-domain learning.

What We’re Looking For...

Youdon’tneed to tick every box, butwe’relooking for someone who:

• Is already operating across multiple teams or domains and has a strong sense of the wider technical estate.
• Brings deep experience designing and delivering complex systems with significant business or user impact.
• Has a genuine interest in agentic and AI-driven development, and the practical judgement to help teams figure out where it genuinely adds value and where it doesn’t.
• Communicates clearly, adapts to the audience, and helps bring people on the journey.
• Thinks strategically, balancing technical concerns with product and organisational context.
• Regularly supports or mentors other engineers and is invested in growing our engineering culture.
• Knows how to move between high-level architecture and hands‑on technical problem solving as needed.
• Is trusted by peers and stakeholders alike, known for their judgement, empathy, and pragmatism.

At Rightmove, we believe software and product are ultimately people problems, and everything we build aims to improve the lives of others. We see AI as a helpful way to create more space for the human side of our work, from understanding real needs to making sure we are solving the right problems in the right way. There is an expectation that you are proactive in exploring how AI can support your own workflow and productivity, and that you approach it with curiosity and an open mind.

Why This Role?

• Influence some of the most strategic and visible areas of the business.
• Shape technical direction in ways that unlock better outcomes for teams and customers.
• Create the conditions for great engineering across a large, varied and interesting codebase.
• Help others grow while continuing to grow yourself.

Our Approach to AI

At Rightmove, we believe software and product are ultimately people problems, and everything we build aims to improve the lives of others. We see AI as a helpful way to create more space for the human side of our work, from understanding real needs to making sure we are solving the right problems in the right way. There is an expectation that you are proactive in exploring how AI can support your own workflow and productivity, and that you approach it with curiosity and an open mind.

About Rightmove

Our vision is to give everyone the belief that they can make their move. We aim to make moving simpler by giving everyone the best place to turn to and return to for access to the tools, expertise, trust and belief to make it happen.

We're home to the UK's largest choice of properties, and are the go-to destination for millions of people planning their next move, reading the latest industry news, or just browsing what's on the market.

Despite this growth, we’ve remained a friendly, supportive place to work, with employee #1 still working here! We’ve done this by placing the Rightmove Hows at the heart of everything we do. These are the essential values that reflect our culture, and include:

• Wecreatevalue…by delivering results and building trust with partners and consumers.
• Wethinkbigger…by acting with curiosity and setting bold aspirations.
• Wecaredeeply…by being real, having fun, and valuing diversity.
• Wemovetogether…by being one team - internally collaborative, externally competitive.
• Wemakea difference…by focusing on delivering measurable impact.

We believe in careers that open doors and help our team develop by providing an open and inclusive work environment, offering ongoing training opportunities, and supporting charity fundraising events. And with 88% of Rightmovers saying we’re a great place to work, we’re clearly doing something right!

What we offer

• Cash plan for dental, optical and physio treatments.
• Private Medical Insurance, Pension and Life Insurance, Employee Assistance Plan.
• 27 days holiday plus two (paid) volunteering days a year to give back, and holiday buy schemes.
• Contributory stakeholder pension.
• Life assurance at 4x your basic salary to a spouse, family member or other nominated person in your life.
• Competitive compensation package.
• Paid leave for maternity, paternity, adoption & fertility.
• Travel Loans, Bike to Work scheme, Rental Deposit Loan.
• Charitable contributions through Payroll Giving and donation matching.
• Access deals and discounts on things like travel, electronics, fashion, gym memberships, cinema discounts and more.
• We offer hybrid working with a minimum of 2 days in the office. For our roles, such as Field or Home-based positions, different working arrangements apply - full details will be shared during the recruitment process.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Rightmove will never discriminate based on age, disability, sex, race, religion or belief, gender reassignment, marriage / civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity or sexual orientation.
At Rightmove, we believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce leads to better innovation, productivity, and overall success., We are committed to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for all employees, regardless of their background or identity, to develop and promote a diverse culture that reflects the communities we serve.

By applying, you confirm that you are aged at least 18 or over and that you’ve read and understood our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle and protect your personal information during the recruitment process.