Principal Software Engineer

RipJar; Cheltenham; Remote; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading data technology company is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead architectural oversight and product design. You will have significant experience in building production systems and managing distributed data-intensive applications. This role is remote-first, open to candidates across the UK, with optional office access in Cheltenham. Join us to combat serious financial crime with innovative software solutions.

Benefits

Competitive base salary DOE

25 days annual leave + birthday off

Remote working

Life assurance

Pension salary sacrifice

Private Family Healthcare

Employee Assistance Programme

Company contributions to your pension

Enhanced maternity/paternity pay

Latest tech including MacBook Pro

Well-stocked office pantries

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering.
• Proven experience in production environments.
• Ability to resolve uncertainty and ambiguity.

Responsibilities

• Provide architectural oversight over software platforms.
• Lead product design and development.
• Empower teams to deliver high-quality software.

Skills

Building and designing software

Developing distributed data-intensive systems

Clear communication skills

Complex systems architecture articulation

Tools

OpenSearch/Elasticsearch

MongoDB

Apache Kafka

Kubernetes

Job description

As a Principal Engineer, you'll provide technology leadership and architectural oversight to our product and platform engineering teams. As a senior technologist you'll be central to Ripjar's technical leadership. You'll report directly to the CTO. You'll work closely with senior leaders and colleagues across the organisation, and you'll play a key role in collaborating with our customers and partners. As an engineer with breadth and depth of experience you'll be in your element designing and delivering scalable software in the cloud and on-premise, articulating software designs and tradeoffs, communicating with engineers, technology and product leaders, senior leadership and customers. You're a key individual contributor and natural technical leader, comfortable guiding engineering teams through uncertainty, unraveling complexity and providing a clear vision. You'll work with our engineering managers and staff/senior engineers to empower engineers to deliver high quality software You'll play a leading role in shaping our technology priorities. You'll also be actively engaged with our product team, and you'll engage with product managers and key customers to understand their needs and develop an effective combined product and technology roadmap.

Key Tasks

• Architectural oversight over Ripjar's software platforms.
• Leading contribution to product design and development.
• Empowering Staff and Senior engineers to own key elements of the product and architecture.
• Empowering technology and product leaders and teams to design and deliver high quality software products.
• Take a leading role in Ripjar's engineering organisation: contributing to standards, design patterns and technology approaches across our technical teams.
• Ensure consistent application of architectural decisions and guidelines across Ripjar's software products.

Success Candidate Should Have These Skills

• You have deep and broad experience in building and designing software: you are an engineer and a natural technical leader. As a guideline, you'll have at least 10 years' experience building software.
• You have proven experience developing distributed data-intensive systems and running them in production.
• You can quickly comprehend complex scenarios, unravel uncertainty and ambiguity and articulate the architecture of complex systems.
• You can communicate clearly - written, verbal, and visually - in the right level of detail for any audience.
• You've built production systems based on OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, MongoDB and/or Apache Kafka.

Bonus Skills

• Expertise in Javascript or Python.
• Experience deploying software into the cloud and on-premise.
• Experience with microservices architectures.
• Experience with Kubernetes.
• Domain experience in National Security, cyber security or financial crime compliance.

Ripjar specialises in the development of software and data products that help governments and organisations combat serious financial crime. Our technology is used to identify criminal activity such as money laundering and terrorist financing, and enables organisations to enforce sanctions at scale to help combat rogue entities and state actors.

We are a remote first team, with a head office based in Cheltenham. This position is open to UK wide candidates. If you are based near Cheltenham, you are more than welcome to work from our office at any time.

Why we think you'll enjoy it here

• Competitive base salary DOE
• 25 days annual leave + your birthday off rising to 30 days after 5 years of service
• Remote working
• Life assurance
• Pension salary sacrifice
• Private Family Healthcare
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Company contributions to your pension
• Enhanced maternity/paternity pay
• The latest tech including a top of the range MacBook Pro
• Offices equipped with well-stocked pantries with food, snacks and drinks when in the office