Job Title: Principal Developer Team Lead
Salary: £51,400 - £68,800
Location: Cambridge/Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
This Principal Developer Team Lead position offers a pivotal opportunity to shape the technical future of a world-renowned academic organisation. You'll spearhead the migration of enterprise systems to cutting-edge cloud-native AWS architectures, while balancing hands-on technical leadership with people management responsibilities.
We are Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a world-leading academic publisher and assessment organisation and a proud part of the University of Cambridge.
About the role
We're seeking a hands-on Principal Developer Team Lead to drive the technical transformation of our Exam Technology Organisation as we migrate legacy enterprise applications to modern, cloud-native architectures on AWS.
You'll balance technical leadership with people management, leading a team of 4-8 developers while establishing the foundations for our future technology stack. Your initial focus will be on two strategic priorities:
Evolving our SRE function - Building the DevOps infrastructure, automation, and tooling that enables Site Reliability Engineering practices across development and operations teams
Advancing our AI development practice - Establishing standards, frameworks, and best practices for responsibly integrating AI capabilities into our education platforms.
What You'll Do
Technical Leadership
Lead migration of legacy applications to cloud-native AWS architectures
Build DevOps automation to support SRE practices
Establish AI/ML development standards and frameworks
Set observability, monitoring, and incident response standards
Promote best practices in web, event-driven, and cloud-native technologies
Provide technical expertise and oversee code reviews
People Leadership
Manage and mentor a team of 4-8 developers, providing coaching, development plan
Identifying training needs in AI/ML and SRE.
Support recruitment and foster a culture of continual improvement and wellbeing.
Delivery & Collaboration
Deliver software in agile squads
Collaborate with architects, SREs, product owners, and infrastructure teams
Liaise with stakeholders to identify education sector needs
Plan and estimate migrations and feature delivery
Coordinate with service management, security, and AWS experts
About you
Essentialexperience
Degree or equivalent
Proven technical team leadership
Skilled in two or more modern programming languages
Experience with AWS cloud and infrastructure
DevOps skills: automation, CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code
Understanding of SRE and observability
Experience in web-apps and modern frameworks
Strong communicator with technical and non-technical audiences
Technical Expertise
CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and developer tooling
Observability tools, monitoring, logging, and alerting systems
Responsible AI practices and governance
Event-driven architecture and microservices patterns
Software design patterns and scalability best practices
Security principles in cloud environments
Leadership Qualities
Ability to set technical standards and provide thought leadership
Experience balancing people management with hands-on contribution
Strong mentoring and coaching skills
Collaborative approach that builds trust across teams
Passion for continuous learning in AI/ML and DevOps
Promotes inclusion and continuous improvement
You'll be instrumental in our digital transformation, establishing the foundations for reliable, innovative systems that serve millions of learners, teachers, and researchers worldwide. By evolving our SRE function and advancing our AI practice, you'll empower teams to deliver high-performance solutions while responsibly harnessing cutting-edge technologies.
If you would like to know more about this opportunity and what will make you successful, please see the full job description attached to the bottom of this vacancy on our careers site.
Rewards and benefits
We will support you to be at your best in work and to live well outside of it. In addition to competitive salaries, we offer a world-class, flexible rewards package, featuring family-friendly and planet-friendly benefits including:
28 days annual leave plus bank holidays
Private medical and Permanent Health Insurance
Discretionary annual bonus
Group personal pension scheme
Life assurance up to 4 x annual salary
Green travel schemes
We are a hybrid working organisation, and we offer a range of flexible working options from day one. We expect most hybrid-working colleagues to spend 40-60% of their time at their dedicated office or location. We will also consider other work arrangements if you wish to work more flexibly or require adjustments due to a disability.
Ready to pursue your potential? Apply now.
We review applications on an ongoing basis, with a closing date for all applications being 16th April 2026.
As part of the application process you can expect:
Two questions to select one answer from multiple options.
A 15-minute screening call with the Hiring Manager.
First stage interview via MS Teams or in person. You will be provided with a brief to complete a role related task which will need to be returned by email in advance of your interview.
Please note that successful applicants will be subject to satisfactory background checks including DBS due to working in a regulated industry.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is an approved UK employer for the sponsorship of eligible roles and applicants under the Skilled Worker visa route. Please refer to the gov.uk website for guidance to understand your own eligibility based on the role you are applying for.
Why join us
Joining us is your opportunity to pursue potential. You'll belong to a collaborative team that's exploring new and better ways to serve students, teachers and researchers across the globe - for the benefit of individuals, society and the world. Sharing our mission will inspire your own growth, development and progress, in an environment which embraces difference, change and aspiration.
Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to being a place where anyone can enjoy a successful career, where it's safe to speak up, and where we learn continuously to improve together. We welcome applications from all candidates, regardless of demographic characteristics (age, disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, marital status, neurodiversity, religion, sex, gender identity and sexual identity), cultural, or social class/background.
We believe better outcomes come through diversity of thought, background and approach. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and communities, actively seeking to employ people from a wide range of different communities.