Principal Engineer: Cloud Architecture & DevOps (Azure)

First Central Services UK Ltd; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

1st Central is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead technical architecture for Focus products, using .Net and Azure. You will translate high‑level designs into workable solutions and guide engineers across the value stream.

You’ll mentor engineers, uphold SOLID, drive observability and quality, and collaborate with Architecture and Product teams. Flexible hybrid working from Salford Quays (Manchester) with occasional in‑person sessions.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and building end-to-end cloud-based software.
• Hands-on Azure and other cloud platforms with C# .NET.
• Experience migrating monolith on-prem to microservices on Azure.
• Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes and serverless tech.
• Strong UML and software modelling skills.
• Experience in agile practices (Scrum or Kanban).

Responsibilities

• Create or guide technical architecture and low-level designs.
• Own proactive monitoring of products and services in your value stream.
• Support enterprise planning and ensure alignment to business outcomes.
• Ensure quality and governance of solutions, manage incidents and changes.
• Promote observability and test pipelines; ensure re-use and performance.
• Lead and mentor engineers; participate in on-call rotations.

Skills

Creative problem solving

People development

Resilience

Integrity

Proactive attitude

Prioritisation

Collaborative design

DevOps

Azure certification

Service‑oriented architecture

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure

Angular

SQL

CI/CD

Job description

1st Central is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead technical architecture for Focus products, using .Net and Azure. You will translate high‑level designs into workable solutions and guide engineers across the value stream.

You’ll mentor engineers, uphold SOLID, drive observability and quality, and collaborate with Architecture and Product teams. Flexible hybrid working from Salford Quays (Manchester) with occasional in‑person sessions.