Focus Principal Engineer

First Central

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

At 1st Central, we are seeking a Principal Engineer for a hands-on technical role focused on .Net and Azure. This position involves providing technical architecture leadership for a set of Focus technical products and services. The role requires determining the Focus technical direction in collaboration with Architecture, ensuring alignment with overall Focus architecture principles and following SOLID principles for maintainability and scalability. You will collaborate with solution architecture to provide clarity and technical direction to engineers, supporting them in building solutions against agreed designs. While there are no direct people management responsibilities, you will offer support, coaching, and mentoring to Focus engineers to ensure high-quality delivery. We offer flexible hybrid working, with teams based in Salford Quays (Manchester), Haywards Heath (West Sussex), and Guernsey. We primarily work from home but value in-person collaboration, typically meeting once a month. More frequent office presence is also accommodated.

Requirements

Extensive experience of designing and building end-to-end cloud-based software solutions.
Experience of using AI to power software engineering.
Excellent understanding of design patterns used in high throughput and availability cloud-based solutions.
Professional hands-on experience of Azure and other Cloud platforms.
Experience of C# .Net including dependency injection, entity framework, and unit testing.
Previous experience of migrating monolith on-prem applications to microservices-based Azure platforms.
Experience of designing applications on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) with an understanding of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and serverless technologies.
Working knowledge of UML, software modelling techniques, tools, and languages.
Exceptional at building strong, effective relationships with people from different disciplines.
Experience of carrying out technical design and build activities using agile working practices (such as Scrum or Kanban).
Experience in writing unit tests for pipelines.
Knowledge and confidence in effective communication on Azure Cloud Subscriptions, Resource Groups, Subnet, VNet, Private Endpoints testing, Firewall rules management on Azure platform components.
Working knowledge of full stack solutions from SPA (ideally in Angular) to SQL databases.
A creative problem solver who thrives on creating simplicity out of complexity.
A passion for people and creating environments that enable others to flourish.
Resilient and comfortable prioritizing in demanding situations.
Highly trustworthy and able to operate with integrity and discretion at all times.
Energetic and proactive, someone who motivates others by their “can do, will do” attitude.
Able to operate with minimal brief and a fast-moving set of changing priorities.
Ability to bring together multiple different views and perspectives to create agreed designs and solutions.
Hands-on experience in DevOps and/or Engineering roles.
Good understanding of a service-based approach to technology, including component, service oriented and event driven architectures.
A customer-centric approach.
Collaborate and partner with a variety of stakeholders.
Ability to apply a product mindset.
Self-motivated and enthusiastic.
An organised and proactive approach.
Ability to work on one’s own initiative and as part of a wider team.
Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business.

Nice To Haves

Azure certified
Other cloud platform certification
AI certified

Responsibilities

Creating or guiding the technical architecture and low-level design of technical solutions, translating high-level artefacts into workable designs and work packages.
Driving forward and owning the proactive monitoring of products and services within your Value Stream.
Participating in Enterprise planning events to support the delivery and planning of change, ensuring high-level solutions align with business outcomes.
Holding overall accountability for the technical product delivery for your Value Stream, adhering to internal governance obligations and the ‘Definition of Done’.
Ensuring speedy resolution of escalated priority incidents, problems, and changes for all Products and services within your value stream, including addressing follow-up actions and improvements.
Ensuring the quality of overall Focus products, implementing solutions effectively from a re-use and performance optimization perspective.
Defining coding standards and low-level design for Focus products for all engineers to follow.
Designing and building observability and quality by design into all Focus pipelines, promoting self-testing pipelines that proactively identify processing issues or discrepancies.
Carrying out unit testing of own code and peer testing of others’ code to ensure appropriate quality, and being responsible for the completeness and integrity of solutions delivered on the Focus platform.
Supporting the release process across your value stream and Enterprise, providing expert guidance to team members.
Leading the SRE function within the value stream and participating in the on-call rota for 365/24/7 support, fixing, and resolving issues, adhering to the on-call policy.
Taking ownership for the creation of effective and appropriate architecture and design documents, ensuring transparency and technical understanding for all Focus products.
Coaching and mentoring Lead and Software Engineers.
Complying with the requirements and acting in accordance with the Group Code of Conduct and Fitness and Propriety policies.
Ensuring compliance with Company Policies, Values, guidelines, and other relevant standards/regulations.
Collaborating effectively with Architects, Product Owners, Lead Developers, and Senior Management to ensure fit-for-purpose solutions and services.