Principal Software Engineer, (Adobe - AEM)

Digital Agency Jobs; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

DEPT, a Growth Invention company at the intersection of technology and marketing, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to act as the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Tech Lead on website and platform projects in Amsterdam. You will anchor delivery, translate architecture and product goals into actionable plans, and collaborate with a cross‑functional team to drive quality and impact.

You'll lead technical workshops, review code, mentor engineers, define API contracts, and ensure smooth

Job description

WHY DEPT?

We are a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, we create what is next by pioneering ideas, acting fast, and moving further because standing still just is not in our DNA.

We are drawn to people who stay curious, move with intent, and never stop inventing. Our culture runs on three values: better together, relentlessly curious, and get sh*t done. It is how we work, how we grow, and how we make things that matter.

At DEPT®, you will find the freedom to explore, the space to collaborate, and the trust to make a real impact for our clients, for each other, and for the world we are helping to build.

The role

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to serve as the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Tech Lead on website and platform projects. You are the technical anchor for the delivery team, taking projects from inception through launch with minimal oversight: turning architecture and product goals into a coherent implementation, documenting scope, requirements, estimates, timelines, and risks, owning day-to-day technical communication, helping engineers make good decisions, and keeping quality high when the work gets complicated. This role reports into our Software Engineering practice in the US.

You will be hands‑on and client-facing. You will lead technical workshops, design and build important pieces, review code, shape technical tasks and estimates, and work directly with a CMS (AEM) Architect, Product Owner, QA, DevOps, UX, Content, and client engineers. You will create the conditions for a team to deliver steadily, without becoming a bottleneck every decision has to pass through.

This role suits an engineer who enjoys both the code and the people around the code. You can go deep on a Sling Model or an OSGi configuration, then come back up and explain the decision in a way a product owner can use.

What you'll do

• Anchor delivery: Take ownership of the technical workstream from inception through launch, breaking architecture and product goals into an implementation plan, technical stories, sequencing, dependencies, estimates, risks, and clear definitions of done. Surface scope gaps, ambiguity, and documentation debt before they become delivery problems.

• Build the important parts: Contribute production-quality website components and blocks, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, Java, and AEM code, especially where the work involves complex components, services, workflows, integrations, responsive behavior, or performance-sensitive behavior.

• Keep the codebase healthy: Establish coding standards and patterns for website components and blocks, Universal Editor models, HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, responsive web design, Sling Models, OSGi services, servlets, schedulers, workflows, error handling, logging, testing, and configuration.

• Lead and mentor: Review pull requests, pair with engineers, explain the why behind patterns, and give useful feedback that raises the whole team's capability. Lead smaller delivery teams when needed, mentor P2 engineers, and build a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

• Protect quality early: Partner with QA and DevOps on automated testing, build gates, security, accessibility, performance, observability, and deployment readiness.

• Make integration behavior explicit: Help define API contracts, payloads, retries, timeouts, authentication, failure handling, and ownership across AEM and external systems.

• Unblock delivery: Investigate defects, environment issues, build failures, and performance problems. Bring the right people together and make the next decision clear.

• Partner with the CMS (AEM) Architect: Turn architecture decisions into codebase conventions, flag when a proposed approach creates unnecessary risk, cost, or operational load, and help resolve technical tradeoffs quickly.

• Consult with the client: Lead technical workshops, presentations, demos, and day‑to‑day communication. Explain implementation choices at the right altitude for engineers, product partners, and executives, and help client engineers understand how to extend and operate the solution.

• Support release readiness: Help the team move safely through development, UAT, hardening, launch, and hypercare. A release is not finished when it compiles; it is finished when it can be supported.

• Improve how we deliver: Leverage GenAI tools, capture reusable patterns, share lessons through craft sessions and documentation, improve estimates and templates, and make the next project easier to start well.