Principal Software Consultant Location: Leeds (Hybrid) Salary: £60,000-£80,000 bonus good benefits Exalto Consulting is partnering with a leading technology consultancy to appoint a Principal Software Consultant to join their consulting team in Leeds city centre. This is a senior consulting role suited to someone who enjoys working at the intersection of business challenges and technology strategy. You will engage with clients early in the lifecycle, helping to shape solutions, lead discovery, and define architectures across engineering, data, AI and cloud platforms. Working alongside Business Analysts, Data Scientists and other Consultants, you will act as a trusted technical advisor, guiding organisations through complex technology decisions and ensuring solutions deliver both technical and commercial value. Key Responsibilities Lead client discovery engagements to understand business challenges and technical requirements Shape and define solution architectures across engineering, data, AI and cloud Provide technical strategy and advisory support across the project lifecycle Support presales engagements, validating ideas and shaping viable solutions Conduct technical due diligence on systems, engineering practices and SDLC maturity Lead AI exploration workshops, identifying opportunities and developing adoption roadmaps Deliver proof of concepts to test technical feasibility and business value Advise on modern data platforms and cloud architectures Build strong relationships with senior stakeholders and act as a trusted partner to clients Experience Required Excellent commercial experience in software engineering or technical consulting Experience working in a consultancy or client facing environment Strong business analysis and solution design skills Experience leading discovery, solution shaping or feasibility assessments Ability to communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non technical stakeholders Technical Background Required Full stack software development background (ideally Microsoft but would consider others) Experience across modern software development technologies and practices Desirable AI / LLM applications (prompt engineering, RAG, agent workflows) Modern data platforms and analytics architectures Cloud native solution design