Principal Software Engineer

Black Duck Software, Inc.; Belfast; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading cybersecurity firm in Belfast is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead technical innovations in their application security platform. The ideal candidate will have over 15 years of experience in developing complex enterprise applications, with a strong proficiency in Golang, Java, and Kubernetes. This role involves mentoring teams, collaborating on product vision, and adopting industry best practices. A hands-on leader with excellent communication and strategic thinking skills is desired.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience developing large enterprise applications using microservices architecture.
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools.
• Solid understanding of Agile methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to multiple engineering teams.
• Collaborate with teams to define the product vision and roadmap.
• Inspire and mentor team members, providing coaching and training.

Skills

Expertise in Golang

Expertise in Java

Experience with cloud technologies (AWS or GCP)

Experience with Kubernetes

Experience with RESTful APIs

Advanced problem-solving abilities

Excellent communication skills

Education

BSc or MSc in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PostgreSQL

Oracle

MySQL

RabbitMQ

Kafka

GitHub Copilot

Claude Code

Job description

About the Company

Black Duck Software, Inc. helps organizations build secure, high-quality software, minimizing risks while maximizing speed and productivity. Black Duck, a recognized pioneer in application security, provides SAST, SCA, and DAST solutions that enable teams to quickly find and fix vulnerabilities and defects in proprietary code, open source components, and application behavior. With a combination of industry-leading tools, services, and expertise, only Black Duck helps organizations maximize security and quality in DevSecOps and throughout the software development life cycle.

Role Overview

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will provide technical leadership and will coach our engineers to maintain and evolve our industry‑leading application security platform. Join us and be part of a team that’s pushing the boundaries of web application development with agile practices, cloud‑native patterns, state‑of‑the‑art engineering methodologies and tools like GitHub Copilot and other AI/GenAI tools. The ideal candidate is a visionary leader with proven track record of delivering complex strategic cloud solutions. A hands‑on technology enthusiast, and a solid full‑stack engineer, they also enjoy helping their peers and their organization remain at the forefront of our industry by identifying and helping implement the latest industry best‑practices that boost our organization’s productivity and team members’ experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to multiple engineering teams, using best practices for SaaS and related technologies.
• Collaborate with the architecture and peer product teams, to define our product vision, build the roadmap and help drive the technical implementation.
• Oversee large‑scale and complex projects to innovate and solve important customer and internal challenges.
• Inspire and mentor other team members, provide coaching and technical training where needed.
• Keep abreast of industry best practices, success and failures, and help the team adopt the right practices.
• Work and collaborate with UX and product management in delivered features.

Key Qualifications

• BSc or MSc in Computer Science or related field/degree.
• 15+ years of experience developing large enterprise applications using microservices architecture, and container orchestration technologies, running on Kubernetes and/or cloud technologies (AWS or GCP).
• Proven track record of successfully delivering strategic projects.
• Expertise in Golang, Java, and Perl.
• Expertise in software architecture, systems design, including experience with scalable architecture, performance optimization.
• Experience with development and working with RESTful APIs.
• Experience in data modelling and working with RDBMS (PostgreSQL, Oracle or MySQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g. MongoDB).
• Experience with Messaging systems (RabbitMQ, Kafka).
• Hands‑on experience with AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, or similar).
• Experience in integrating AI capabilities into software systems, including prompt engineering, API integration, and leveraging LLM‑based services for automation and productivity.
• Experience in developing in Linux environment.
• Solid understanding of Agile methodologies and DevOps practices.
• Advanced problem‑solving abilities.
• Strategic thinking.
• Strong leadership skills.
• Excellent communication skills (in‑person and remote).

Nice to Have

• Experience designing and implementing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers or similar architectures to enable secure and scalable AI‑driven workflows.
• Experience with front‑end development frameworks (React).
• Experience in GO and Python programming.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Black Duck considers all applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender preference, national origin, age, disability, or status as a Covered Veteran in accordance with federal law. In addition, Black Duck complies with applicable state and local laws prohibiting discrimination in employment in every jurisdiction in which it maintains facilities. Black Duck also provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with a disability in accordance with applicable laws.