Principal Software Engineer (Platform Leadership)
Manchester (Hybrid – 2 days onsite)
£110k + 20% bonus + £7k car allowance
No visa sponsorship available
The Opportunity
This is NOT ANOTHER Principal role.
This is a “Principal of Principals” position - a rare opportunity to sit at the centre of a greenfield, enterprise-scale SaaS platform that is redefining how a complex, high-volume ecosystem connects, operates, and scales.
You’ll be shaping a revolutionary connected platform - bringing together multiple systems, data streams, and services into a single, intelligent, event-driven architecture designed to operate at serious scale.
This is the kind of role where:
* The problems are real
* The scale is meaningful
* And your decisions actually shape the future of the platform
What You’ll Be Building
* A greenfield, cloud-native SaaS platform
* Designed around event-driven, distributed architecture
* Connecting multiple services, products, and data domains into a unified ecosystem
* Built to handle high throughput, real-time decisioning, and complex workflows
This is not maintenance.
This is platform creation at enterprise scale.
Your Role in It
You won’t just contribute — you’ll define how it’s done.
* Act as the technical authority across multiple teams and domains
* Set engineering standards across architecture, design, and delivery
* Guide and mentor other senior and principal engineers
* Make high-impact architectural decisions that shape the platform long-term
* Stay hands-on where it matters — this is not an ivory tower role
* Partner closely with Product and Data to solve complex, high-value problems
Tech Environment
* .NET (core to everything)
* Azure cloud ecosystem
* Event-driven architecture (messaging, streaming, async processing)
* Microservices and distributed systems
* CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices
* High-performance data processing and system optimisation
Why This Role Stands Out
Greenfield, done properly
No legacy constraints - you’ll help define:
* Architecture
* Patterns
* Standards
* Ways of working
Enterprise scale, real impact
This isn’t theory - the platform will:
* Power critical business operations
* Process high volumes of data and transactions
* Be used daily across multiple regions
World class engineering environment
You’ll be surrounded by:
* Strong senior engineers
* Modern practices
* A genuine push to raise the technical bar
Career-defining role
This is the kind of role that leads to:
* Head of Engineering
* Architecture leadership
* Platform ownership at scale
What We’re Looking For
* Deep experience in .NET / backend engineering
* Proven track record building scalable, distributed systems
* Experience in enterprise SaaS or platform environments
* Strong architectural thinking — able to design for scale, resilience, and performance
* Someone who can lead technically, influence broadly, and still stay hands-on
Important
* No visa sponsorship available
* Must be able to work 2 days per week onsite in Manchester
The Honest Sell
This role is for someone who:
* Is already operating at a high level
* Wants to work on bigger, more meaningful problems
* Wants to shape a platform, not just contribute to one
* Still enjoys being close to the code, but wants real influence