Principal Software Developer

United States Digital Space LLC; Bedford; Hybrid; GBP 76,500 - 103,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous Annual Leave

Pension scheme – matched contributions

Cycle to work scheme

Life assurance scheme

EAP (Employee Assistance Programme)

Job summary

MaPS is seeking a Principal Software Developer with deep front-end expertise to lead React/Next.js efforts, shape front-end architecture, and advance our design system and engineering standards. You will mentor senior and lead engineers, collaborate across product and design, and influence CI/CD and cloud deployment practices.

The role emphasizes front-end leadership, scalable patterns, accessibility, and secure-by-design practices, with hybrid working in Bedford.

Qualifications

• Senior/lead level with multiple teams, technical leadership.
• Deep front-end engineering experience in production environments.
• Experience defining front-end architecture and standards.
• Decision-making for complex front-end platforms.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across multiple teams.
• Define and evolve front-end architecture and standards.
• Drive the design system and component library.
• Establish front-end quality standards (testing, accessibility).
• Collaborate with DevOps, architecture to define deployment patterns.
• Lead front-end community of practice and mentor engineers.
• Document technical decisions and ensure maintainability.

Skills

Front-end leadership

JavaScript

TypeScript

React

Next.js

Architecture design

Code quality

CI/CD

Accessibility

Azure/AWS cloud

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field

Tools

Design system tooling

Netlify

Storybook

Job description

Job Reference

MaPS01238

Principal Software Developer

£90,000 per annum

Bedford

Permanent

Hybrid Working

Join us at the company (MaPS) as a Principal Software Engineer with deep front‑end expertise to lead and strengthen our React, Next.js and front‑end engineering capability. This is a front‑end‑led role with broader full‑stack awareness: you’ll spend most of your time shaping front‑end architecture, reusable patterns, accessibility, design systems and engineering standards, while also working confidently with Azure cloud services, API integration and CI/CD.

You’ll lead the React / Front End Community of Practice, mentor senior and lead engineers, and support teams where your expertise is most needed. This could include leading key initiatives, embedding with teams to solve complex engineering challenges, guiding the evolution of our design system and component library, or helping teams make pragmatic decisions across the front‑end and integration layer.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide hands‑on technical leadership across multiple teams, embedding where needed to solve complex front‑end engineering challenges, reduce technical risk, establish reusable patterns and align implementation with wider technology strategy.
• Define and evolve front‑end architecture, frameworks, standards and engineering practices, particularly across React, Next.js and the front‑end platform, ensuring approaches are scalable, maintainable and aligned with organisational goals.
• Drive the technical implementation for the design system and component library, collaborating with product, design and engineering to support adoption, technical governance, reuse and a consistent user experience.
• Establish and promote front‑end engineering quality standards, including testing, accessibility, secure‑by‑design practices, code review, documentation, observability and maintainability.
• Partner with the Software Engineering Manager, architects and technical leads to identify and mitigate technical risks, dependencies and architectural constraints that may affect delivery predictability.
• Collaborate with DevOps, platform and architecture teams to define effective front‑end deployment, CI/CD, hosting and integration patterns, including technologies such as Netlify and Azure.
• Support teams in embedding relevant standards, including accessibility, GDS Service Manual expectations, security and compliance requirements, through tooling, guidance, coaching and reusable implementation patterns.
• Lead the front‑end/JavaScript community of practice, facilitating collaboration, sharing best practice, aligning standards and supporting adoption across teams.
• Mentor senior and lead engineers, providing technical coaching and mentoring to senior and lead engineers, helping improve engineering judgement, technical decision‑making and consistency of implementation across teams.
• Drive high‑quality technical documentation, knowledge sharing and decision‑recording practices to improve consistency, reuse and long‑term maintainability.
• Advise on emerging industry trends, tools and practices, including responsible use of AI‑assisted development, identifying where adoption would provide meaningful value while maintaining appropriate engineering standards.
• Lead or facilitate technical discussions with internal stakeholders and external delivery partners, ensuring front‑end technical decisions are coherent, sustainable and aligned with agreed architecture and engineering standards.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Significant experience operating at principal, staff, lead or equivalent level, providing technical leadership across multiple teams or services, not only within a single delivery team.
• Expert knowledge of modern front‑end engineering, with deep experience of JavaScript, TypeScript, React and Next.js in production‑scale environments.
• Demonstrable experience defining front‑end architecture, engineering standards, reusable patterns and technical strategy that have been adopted across teams or products.
• Experience leading technical decision‑making for complex front‑end platforms, including trade‑off analysis, risk management, maintainability, scalability and long‑term operability.
• Strong experience designing, building or governing shared front‑end platforms, component libraries, design systems or reusable engineering tooling.
• Experience improving engineering quality across teams, including testing strategy, accessibility, secure‑by‑design practices, code review, documentation, observability and maintainability.
• Strong understanding of front‑end performance, user experience and Core Web Vitals, with experience identifying and addressing performance issues in complex applications.
• Strong experience with accessibility, semantic HTML, ARIA and inclusive design implementation, with the ability to coach teams on practical adoption.
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines and modern delivery practices, such as GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps Pipelines, and influencing deployment patterns for front‑end applications.
• Experience collaborating with architecture, platform, DevOps, product, design, testing and delivery colleagues to shape technical direction and improve delivery outcomes.
• Strong understanding of API integration patterns, including REST APIs and GraphQL, and the implications of these patterns for front‑end architecture and user experience.
• Awareness of secure‑by‑design principles, OWASP guidance and software quality tooling such as SonarCloud, with the ability to embed these expectations into front‑end ways of working.
• Experience mentoring senior and lead engineers, improving technical leadership capability and supporting consistent technical decision‑making across an engineering community.
• Demonstrable commitment to robust, maintainable and sustainable engineering practices, including clear documentation, technical decision records and knowledge sharing.
• Ability to lead or facilitate technical discussions with senior stakeholders, internal teams and external delivery partners, translating complex technical issues into clear recommendations.
• Experience with Azure services, or equivalent AWS/GCP services, relevant to modern web application delivery, such as Azure Functions, App Services, Entra ID, Cosmos DB, API Management, Redis or App Configuration.

Desirable Skills

• Experience leading or significantly contributing to a front‑end, JavaScript, React or engineering community of practice.
• Experience with Netlify, including deployment configuration, serverless functions, edge capabilities or blob storage.
• Experience with Node.js in the context of front‑end platforms, API integration, tooling, build pipelines or server‑side rendering.
• Experience with non‑relational databases such as Cosmos DB or MongoDB, particularly where relevant to full‑stack or integration patterns.
• Experience with monorepo architecture and tooling such as Nx, Turborepo or similar approaches for managing shared front‑end codebases.
• Experience with design system tooling and workflows, such as Storybook, visual regression testing, component documentation and design‑to‑development governance.
• Experience implementing or integrating with Content Management Systems, such as Wagtail and headless CMS approaches.
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as Azure Monitor, Log Analytics Workspace or equivalent platforms.
• Experience with tag management, analytics and experimentation implementations, such as Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics or Adobe tooling.
• Experience with CSS architecture at scale, including mobile‑first responsive design, design tokens and frameworks such as Tailwind.
• Experience with other programming languages such as C#, Python or similar, particularly where this supports collaboration across full‑stack or platform teams.
• Experience evaluating or guiding responsible use of AI‑assisted development tools while maintaining appropriate engineering quality, security and governance standards.
• Line management experience, or experience supporting engineer development through mentoring, coaching, pairing, technical feedback and contribution to engineering career frameworks.

Benefits

• Generous Annual Leave – 30 days plus Bank Holidays
• Pension scheme – contributions matched 2 to 1 (employer contribution up to 10% of your salary)
• Interest‑free loan for season tickets for buses and trains
• Cycle to work Scheme
• Subsidised eye tests & flu jabs
• Life assurance scheme
• Give as you earn scheme
• Employee assistance programme (EAP)
• PAM Assist and PAM Life scheme (Wellbeing)
• Enhanced family and sick pay
• Paid volunteering (2 days a year)
• Recognition Scheme
• Discounts portal to numerous retailers

Hybrid Working

We take pride in our flexible approach to work. As standard, we work on a hybrid basis with a minimum of 2 days in the office per month. Hybrid working is a voluntary, non‑contractual arrangement and our headquarters in Bedford will be your contractual place of work.