Principal Technologist

WRK Digital; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Pension

Additional flexible benefits

Job summary

WRK digital is seeking a Principal Technologist to lead a portfolio of fintech platforms, shaping technology strategy and guiding platform modernisation. Join a hybrid Manchester team, influencing architecture decisions while staying hands-on enough to review designs and support engineering challenges.

You'll work closely with the CTO and product teams to drive engineering excellence, DevSecOps adoption, and reliable delivery of critical financial services technology.

Qualifications

• 5–10 years in software and product engineering roles.
• 3–5 years in Financial Services, FinTech, Payments or regulated environments.
• Experience leading engineering teams responsible for modern, business‑critical products or platforms.
• Direct experience across software engineering, cloud platforms, APIs and platform engineering.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across a portfolio of critical financial services platforms.
• Help define and evolve engineering strategy, standards and best practices.
• Partner with Product and Engineering leaders to align technology decisions with business outcomes.
• Guide platform modernisation, API development and cloud‑native engineering initiatives.
• Support adoption of modern architectures, including microservices and event‑driven systems.
• Drive improvements across engineering performance, quality and operational resilience.
• Champion DevSecOps, automation, CI/CD and engineering excellence practices.
• Mentor engineers, technical leads and engineering managers.
• Contribute to AI adoption and responsible use of emerging technologies across teams.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders on technology direction, delivery and risk.

Skills

Leadership

Hands-on engineering

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

.NET

Azure

Microservices

API design

Influence

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

Principal Technologist (FinTech Product Platforms)

Manchester (Hybrid)

WRK digital are proud to be supporting a global FinTech organisation as they invest in the next phase of their engineering and product evolution.

Our client operates a suite of proprietary platforms that underpin global payments, foreign exchange and financial services used by businesses worldwide.

As engineering becomes increasingly central to the organisation's growth plans, they are looking for an experienced Principal Engineer to provide technical leadership across product engineering, platform modernisation and engineering excellence initiatives.

This is a rare opportunity to influence both strategic technology direction and day-to-day engineering decisions within a business that is actively investing in cloud, APIs, AI and modern engineering practices.

The Opportunity

This role sits at the intersection of technology leadership and engineering execution.

You'll work closely with the CTO and Product team to help shape technology strategy whilst remaining close enough to engineering teams to influence architecture, delivery practices and technical decision-making.

Success in this role will come from your ability to build credibility with engineers, guide technical direction and help create a culture of engineering excellence.

You won't be expected to write production code every day, but you will be comfortable reviewing architecture, challenging design decisions and supporting teams through complex technical challenges.

What You'll Be Doing

• Provide technical leadership across a portfolio of business‑critical financial services platforms.
• Help define and evolve engineering strategy, standards and best practices.
• Partner with Product and Engineering leaders to align technology decisions with business outcomes.
• Guide platform modernisation, API development and cloud‑native engineering initiatives.
• Support adoption of modern architectures, including microservices and event‑driven systems.
• Drive improvements across engineering performance, quality and operational resilience.
• Champion DevSecOps, automation, CI/CD and engineering excellence practices.
• Mentor engineers, technical leads and engineering managers.
• Contribute to AI adoption and the responsible use of emerging technologies across engineering teams.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders on technology direction, delivery and risk.

What We're Looking For

We're interested in speaking with experienced software engineering leaders who have progressed from hands‑on engineering backgrounds and remain passionate about technology and hands on (to a degree).

You'll likely bring:

• 5-10 years within software and product engineering environments.
• At least 3-5 years working within Financial Services, FinTech, Payments or other regulated environments.
• Experience leading engineering teams responsible for modern, business‑critical products or platforms.
• Direct experience across software engineering, cloud platforms, APIs and platform engineering.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD, DevOps, automation and modern engineering practices.
• Experience working with cloud‑native architectures and scalable distributed systems.
• Technical expertise across .NET, Azure and modern software delivery environments.
• The ability to influence engineers, stakeholders and business leaders alike.

About You

You're likely the person others turn to when they need technical leadership.

You've probably spent time as a Principal Engineer, Lead Engineer, Engineering Manager or Head of Engineering and enjoy operating where technology, people and business priorities meet.

You are comfortable challenging constructively, solving complex problems and helping engineering teams perform at their best.

Most importantly, you're someone who enjoys building better technology organisations, not just better technology.

Package

• Annual bonus
• Pension
• Additional flexible benefits