Principal Software Engineer - AI-Driven Platform

The Citation Group; Wilmslow; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

The Citation Group is seeking a hands-on software engineer to join a squad driving a platform transformation. You will write production-grade code across the full stack, influence design, and help embed AI-native practices. This role emphasizes ownership, quality, and continuous improvement within a growing, security-conscious team.

You will collaborate with a Tech Lead to move to CI/CD, improve observability, and contribute to AI-powered workflows across the engineering lifecycle.

Qualifications

• Solid experience as a software engineer delivering complex features on production systems.
• Strong full-stack capability across backend and frontend with databases and cloud infra.

Responsibilities

• Write production-quality code daily across the full stack, including backend, frontend, and supporting infra.
• Take ownership of features from design through deployment, delivering working software in shippable increments.
• Contribute to technical design and architecture discussions with practical input.
• Run technical spikes and proofs-of-concept to explore approaches before committing to a direction.
• Manage technical debt responsibly and keep the codebase well-maintained.
• Build with observability in mind and support DevOps capabilities for the team.

Skills

Full-stack development

CI/CD

Cloud platforms (Azure/AWS)

Containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes)

Security best practices

AI in engineering workflows

Code review & pair programming

Observability & DevOps

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure

AWS

CI/CD tooling

Job description

The Citation Group is seeking a hands-on software engineer to join a squad driving a platform transformation. You will write production-grade code across the full stack, influence design, and help embed AI-native practices. This role emphasizes ownership, quality, and continuous improvement within a growing, security-conscious team.

You will collaborate with a Tech Lead to move to CI/CD, improve observability, and contribute to AI-powered workflows across the engineering lifecycle.