Senior Principal Software Engineer

The Bbc; Salford; On-site; GBP 87,000 - 103,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent media organization is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to enhance digital products at scale. In this role, you will lead engineering culture, drive innovation through AI, and ensure the smooth operation of the BBC website. Ideal candidates should possess deep knowledge of modern web technologies and demonstrate an empowering leadership style. The position offers a proposed salary of up to £103,000 depending on relevant skills and experience, working in a collaborative environment with significant impact on millions of users.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a lead/staff/principal software engineer.
• Deep knowledge of modern web technologies and large-scale web platforms.
• A collaborative and empowering leadership style.

Responsibilities

• Be a role model for engineering culture and best practices.
• Drive collaboration and consistency across teams.
• Champion AI adoption in engineering and testing.

Skills

modern web technologies

React

TypeScript

Node.JS

CSS

leadership

collaboration

mentoring

AI adoption

Job description

Overview

Join the BBC's Web area as a Senior Principal Software Engineer to help engineer outstanding digital products at scale. You'll work across all web teams to identify and deliver engineering opportunities, drive technical excellence, and support millions of daily users. Collaborating with engineering and architecture leadership, you'll champion innovation, AI, and engineering velocity—helping make the BBC website even more successful while shaping world-class engineering standards across Product Group.

Why Join the Team

Be part of a world-class engineering team aspiring to make the BBC as renowned for its engineering as it is for its content. You'll work in a collaborative, inclusive environment that values curiosity, quality, and pace. With opportunities to mentor, innovate with AI, and shape engineering culture across six web groups, you'll do the most meaningful work of your career—impacting millions of users and driving the future of digital products.

Your Key Responsibilities And Impact

• Be a role model for engineering culture—embodying values such as quality, collaboration, curiosity, inclusion, and pace.
• Work closely with engineering teams and the principal engineer community to drive best engineering practice and build strong, inclusive teams.
• Share best-practice and understanding across all six web groups to drive collaboration and consistency.
• Help the successful operation of the BBC website, including acting as Incident Commander during major incidents.
• Focus on innovation and engineering velocity to help teams create new product value safely and efficiently.
• Champion AI adoption in engineering and testing, evaluating solutions like GitHub Copilot and promoting best practice.
• Partner with other disciplines to solve complex challenges and provide insight into engineering strengths and opportunities.
• Significant experience as a lead/staff/principal software engineer (or similar role), with a strong track record of impact across multiple teams or domains.
• Deep knowledge of modern web technologies (e.g. React, TypeScript, Node.JS, CSS) and experience working on large-scale, high-availability web platforms.
• A collaborative and empowering leadership style, with experience mentoring engineers and influencing stakeholders across disciplines.
• Comfort working in a matrixed or cross-functional environment, building coalitions across teams with different goals.
• A user-focused mindset, considering accessibility, performance, and inclusivity as foundational principles of good engineering.

Desirable But Not Required

• Experience supporting critical projects, such as a General Election, where reliability and responsiveness are essential.
• Familiarity with AI tools and approaches, including GitHub Copilot, and an understanding of their practical and cultural implications.
• Knowledge of rapid prototyping techniques to support product and UX discovery.
• Understanding of experimentation frameworks and tools that enable safe, scalable testing across multiple teams.
• Experience improving CI/CD pipeline efficiency and test automation to enhance engineering velocity.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Contracts of Employment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: up to £103,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.