Principal Engineer (Back End)
Recruiter
Listed on
Location
Salary/Rate
Salary Notes
Type
Start Date
This job has now expired please search on the home page to find live IT Jobs.
Sainsbury's are one of the largest retailers of quality food, general merchandise, clothing and financial services in the UK, with an annual turnover of £30 billion and over 26 million customer transactions every week.
We are looking for a skilled Principal Engineer with a specialist interest in back end applications to work across our business on a variety of platforms and technologies. You will collaborate closely with engineers and other colleagues to understand their needs and their constraints so you can help shape our engineering approach through spreading good practice, setting standards, teaching, coaching and mentoring.
We want you to continuously improve the way we work so we can delight our colleagues and customers.
What I need to do
Lead as a practioner, writing clean, well abstracted and maintainable code, and supporting others to do the same
Take a test and behaviour driven development approach, and support others to do the same
Work collaboratively and be an active contributor to continuous improvement across the teams and communities of practice
Help create an environment where providing honest and open feedback is the norm
Lead the creation and maintenance of standards
Contribute to the definition and execution of our technology strategy
Instill the benefits and practices of a DevOps culture in our engineers
Ensure there is always an appropriate focus on quality
Teach, coach and mentor other engineers
Take the lead in architecting systems and applications
Facilitate the relationship between engineering and architecture
How I will succeed
Show that you have an excellent understanding for a number of technical skills, attitudes and behaviours, and can instil them in others
Proactively seek opportunities to share your knowledge and abilities
Build strong relationships with engineers and other key roles
Demonstrate empathy with other people's context and constraints
Lead and contribute across Communities of Practice
Be an ambassador for technical excellence
What I need to know
We look for "T-shaped people" - those with broad experience and knowledge, but who also have deep expertise in areas such as mobile, web, back end, quality and operability.
We expect all our Principal Engineers to demonstrate:
The ability to write clear, maintainable code that is well factored
Advanced understanding and experience of TDD and BDD
Advanced understanding and experience of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, including the design and building of pipelines using effective test approaches
Strong experience of mentoring and coaching team members
Strong knowledge of a DVCS, ideally Git
Strong understanding and experience of agile and lean practices, when they are appropriate and why they work
Experience of leading people, ideally across different teams
Experience of working with business owners and other stakeholders
The ability to look at technologies in a strategic context, beyond personal favourites
Awareness of new technologies and how they may be applied
Experience of pair programming, and able to articulate the benefits
Experience of working in a DevOps culture and understanding of the benefits
Able to present clearly and concisely
Willingness to challenge the status quo
The back end specialist will also demonstrate:
Experience of several different programming languages, including both static and dynamic, including at least two of Java, C#, Scala, Python, PHP, JavaScript and Golang
Experience of high traffic, transactional applications
Advanced OO design, including SOLID principles
Advanced understanding and experience of relational and non-relational databases
Advanced understanding and experience of service-oriented architectures, and knowledge of microservice design and implementation
Familiarity with web services, particularly REST and caching
Advanced understanding and experience of framework agnostic development
Good understanding and experience of Linux administration
Understanding and experience of network and web server administration
Experience with cloud infrastructure and services, preferably AWS
Experience of working with legacy systems, ideally including maintenance and phased decommissioning
Experience of working with and integrating with COTs products
Understanding and experience of messaging, ideally across several implementations
Experience of operating as well as building software
What I need to show
Communication and Influencing - Uses a range of techniques to influence, adapts to situation
Analytical Thinking - Pushes boundaries in solving problems
Aptitude to Learn - Actively seeks feedback from multiple sources and contributes to wider community in own area of expertise
Team Work - Supports a collective effort to resolve problems, uses strengths of team to deliver increased value, builds strong internal/external relationships and bridges where none existed
Leadership and Mentoring
Commitment and Planning - Delivers ahead of expectations
Resources available to me
Line manager providing on-going support through 121’s and SMART objectives
Enterprise Architecture team
Wider development community sharing knowledge and support
What decisions I can make
Influence technology choices for multiple teams
Shape the technical landscape using your experience
Shape tool choices and standards across multiple teams
To find out more and to apply, please click the APPLY button.