Principal Engineer (Java) - Contract

London or Edinburgh | Hybrid Working (2 Days Per Week On-Site) | 6-9 Month Contract | Competitive Daily Rate

We're currently seeking an experienced Principal Engineer to join a major technology transformation programme on an initial 6-9 month contract. This is a senior-level opportunity for a hands-on technical leader with a proven track record of designing and delivering scalable, resilient, and high-performing solutions within complex enterprise environments.
Working alongside architecture, product, and engineering teams, you'll provide technical leadership across multiple workstreams, helping shape engineering strategy while remaining close to solution design and delivery. You'll play a key role in driving modern engineering practices, automation, and software quality across a large-scale platform landscape.

Key Technology Stack

Essential

• Java 8+
• Spring Boot
• Microservices Architecture
• REST APIs
• PostgreSQL
• Kafka
• Snowflake

Desirable

• IBM StreamSets
• Apache Airflow

The Role

As a Principal Engineer, you'll create great customer outcomes through the design and delivery of innovative, secure, and scalable technology solutions. You'll provide technical direction, influence engineering strategy, and ensure best practice is embedded throughout the software development lifecycle.
You'll work closely with software engineers, architects, and stakeholders to define and govern technical solutions whilst supporting the successful delivery of key business initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and implementation of enterprise-scale Java microservices and distributed systems.
• Define, create, and govern engineering solutions focused on automation, simplification, resilience, security, scalability, and performance.
• Drive the adoption of modern software engineering practices, DevOps principles, and CI/CD automation.
• Design and develop APIs, event-driven solutions, and integration patterns using Kafka.
• Collaborate with domain and enterprise architects to align solutions with broader strategic objectives.
• Develop architecture roadmaps and technical blueprints that support future business growth.
• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance across engineering teams.
• Support engineering governance, design reviews, and technical decision-making.
• Ensure solutions are operationally robust, highly available, secure, and maintainable.

Essential Experience

• Extensive hands-on experience with Java 8+, Spring Boot, and modern microservices architectures.
• Strong expertise designing and delivering event-driven systems using Kafka.
• Experience working with PostgreSQL and enterprise-scale database solutions.
• Proven experience implementing and integrating with Snowflake data platforms.
• Strong background in designing and developing RESTful APIs and service-based architectures.
• Significant experience operating within Agile and DevOps delivery environments.
• Deep understanding of software architecture, system design, scalability, resilience, and performance optimisation.
• Strong experience with Test-Driven Development (TDD), automated testing frameworks, unit testing, mocking, and stubbing.
• Experience working with source control, code repositories, CI/CD pipelines, defect management tools, and engineering collaboration platforms.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

We're looking for someone who can provide both technical excellence and leadership.
You'll have:

• A proven track record leading engineering teams within large, complex, matrix organisations.
• Experience defining and executing engineering and technology strategies.
• The ability to translate business requirements into scalable, secure, and maintainable technical solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving high-performing engineering cultures.
• A passion for continuous improvement, engineering excellence, and innovation.

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Vertage Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.