Job Description
Principal Software Engineer
Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Contract Duration: 12 months
Rate: £63.83 p/h PAYE (£73.11 inc. holiday rate) OR £87.04 p/h Umbrella
We seek an engineer with recent high-integrity or safety-critical industry experience (defence, aerospace, or similar), or eligible for UK security clearance.
Role Overview
An experienced Principal Software Engineer is required to join a well-established Test Engineering community, supporting advanced defence and aerospace programmes. The role focuses on developing software solutions for complex test systems used in cutting-edge radar and aerospace platforms.
The successful candidate will play a key technical leadership role, contributing to the design, development, and delivery of high-quality test software while working closely with multi-disciplinary engineering teams and stakeholders.
Key Responsibilities
* Design, develop, and deliver software solutions within defined work packages, ensuring stakeholder requirements are met
* Elicit, analyse, prioritise, and manage stakeholder needs to deliver optimal technical solutions
* Produce high-quality, robust, and well-documented code, ensuring outputs are maintained under configuration management
* Provide progress reporting, planning, and technical updates to line management
* Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to ensure software architecture alignment across the wider programme
* Apply appropriate tools and techniques for test equipment and test system software design
* Identify, resolve, and drive solutions to emerging technical issues, escalating complex risks where required
* Mentor, coach, and support the development of engineers within the wider team
Essential Skills & Experience
* Strong experience designing and developing software using C
* Proven expertise with NI LabWindows/CVI
* Familiarity with NI TestStand
* Experience working in test engineering or test system software environments
Desirable Skills & Experience
* Development of low-level software drivers
* Software development for automated or complex test systems
* Experience working within a structured development process framework
* Agile development experience and use of modern collaboration/tooling platforms
* Familiarity with configuration management, defect tracking, and peer review practices
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