Principal Engineer - Director

Description

The role is a principal engineer position at Director level, focused on technical leadership and the design of robust software.

You will lead engineering teams toward strong technical standards, mentor them, work across functions, and help shape strategy so delivery matches business goals.

The function is run at Director scale, with significant strategic input, cross-functional projects that may be business wide, and senior-level stakeholder work.

The role is either a people leadership role over a large team or sub-function, or an individual contributor role leading organisation wide projects as a deep technical expert.

Senior leaders are expected to follow the LEAD behaviours: listen and be authentic, energise and inspire, align across the enterprise, and develop others.

All colleagues are expected to follow the company Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship, and the company Mindset of Empower, Challenge and Drive.

Responsibilities

• Guide engineering teams so their work follows good practice and a strong technical culture.
• Shape strategy by linking technical choices to business goals, tracking future technology trends, and advising on product roadmaps.
• Design and build complex, scalable, maintainable software, with an eye on long-term viability and business goals.
• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level engineers so they grow and share knowledge, raising the skills of the whole organisation.
• Work with business partners, product managers, designers and other stakeholders to turn business needs into technical solutions and keep product development joined up.
• Bring new technologies, methods and industry practices into the engineering process.
• Manage a business function and influence its policies, procedures and multiple complex strategic projects.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalate breaches of policy or procedure appropriately.
• Foster compliance and make sure regulations are observed and processes exist to support adherence.
• Monitor and, where appropriate, influence regulators and advocacy groups on behalf of the company.
• Solve complex, sensitive problems with interpretive thinking and advanced analysis, and make significant decisions within your area.
• Negotiate with and influence senior stakeholders, both internal and external.
• Act as the principal contact for key clients and counterparts in other functions and business divisions, and as spokesperson for the function and division.
• Advise senior functional management and committees to influence decisions outside your own function.

Requirements

• At least 15 years of experience.
• Expert knowledge of modern Java (Java 17 or later), Spring Boot and Spring Cloud in large, mission-critical banking environments.
• Proven experience designing and running high-volume corporate banking platforms covering payments, cash management, trade finance, liquidity or treasury.
• Strong grasp of distributed systems, event-driven architecture, APIs, data consistency and streaming technologies such as Kafka.
• Demonstrated leadership in enterprise and solution architecture, including microservices, cloud-native design and legacy modernisation.
• Ability to make and defend complex architectural trade-offs between performance, resilience, speed, risk and regulatory compliance.
• Deep understanding of security, risk and regulatory controls, with security built into design, development and deployment.
• Strong corporate banking domain knowledge, able to turn business strategy and product needs into scalable technical solutions.
• A strategic mindset that aligns technology roadmaps with growth, cost efficiency and regulatory change.
• Experience working with product, risk, operations and senior architecture stakeholders.
• Proven ability to mentor senior engineers and act as a technical role model across teams.
• Experience driving engineering excellence through CI/CD, testing, observability and operational best practices.
• Ability to shape engineering culture and maturity through leadership and example rather than formal authority.

Conditions

The salary figures given cover base pay only and exclude other compensation and benefits.

This position is eligible for an incentive award.

Equal opportunity applies.

Benefits

• Eligible for a competitive and generous benefits package, including medical, dental and vision cover, 401(k), life insurance and paid leave for qualifying circumstances.