Principal Software Engineer - Java

Position: Lead Software Engineer

Location: Manchester (Hybrid – 2 days per week in office)

Salary Range: £85,000 – £140,000

Our client is shaping the next chapter of digital banking with one of the biggest and most innovative banking software projects in Europe.

We’re looking for innovative minds to help lead the way. If you're a hands-on Java engineer with a passion for scalable architecture and modern cloud-native development, this is your chance to work on something big.

You’ll take a key role in a strategic engineering team that’s focused on designing and delivering the bank’s future core platform — a modern, event-driven system powered by cloud infrastructure.

You will play a key role in this greenfield project by architecting/building performant services and APIs which support innovative financial products.

What You’ll Do

• Lead engineering efforts on backend services in Java, built for cloud deployment and aligned with modern software architecture principles.
• Design and maintain integration layers and orchestration services that connect Vault with various internal banking systems.
• Establish coding standards, enforce clean code practices, and drive team-wide adoption of CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and secure development.
• Build scalable, reusable APIs with reliability and performance at the core.
• Work closely with DevOps, SREs, and platform teams to ensure resilient deployment strategies using Kubernetes, containers, and public cloud tools.
• Provide technical mentorship and guidance to engineers, playing a central role in shaping our engineering culture.

What You’ll Bring

• Strong background in Java (8+ years) and Spring Boot.
• Proven track record designing distributed systems and microservices at scale.
• In-depth understanding of cloud-first architectures and domain-driven design.
• Experience building and securing RESTful APIs and working with messaging platforms like Kafka.
• Comfort working across the software lifecycle — from architecture and design to testing and production support.
• Demonstrated leadership in setting engineering direction, mentoring others, and maintaining high standards for delivery.

Perks and Benefits:

• Up to 15% employer pension contributions
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Share options and savings schemes
• 30 days of holiday plus bank holidays

If you're interested, please apply now!