Principal Software Engineer - Store Payments & Infrastructure

Summary

The Principal Engineer is the most senior engineer in the company and plays a crucial role in delivering our business goals. They are technical leaders responsible for setting technical direction, driving engineering excellence, and aligning technology with business strategy. This role combines deep technical expertise with strong leadership, mentorship, and cross-functional influence to deliver robust, scalable solutions and foster a high-performing engineering culture.

This role is aligned with Store Payments and Infrastructure in Retail Domain and will partner closely with the Head of Engineering and the Solution Architect in the Store P&I sub-domain. Being creative, curious, and confident, you will be an integral part of our empowered, self-managing, multi-disciplinary Engineering and Platform teams - designing, building, releasing, and maintaining solutions. Platform/DevOps background (Azure and Linux) would align best; however, it’s your passion for designing and delivering the best tech solutions to our customers and colleagues in stores would count the most! 

What You'll Do

Technical leadership & strategy 

• Lead system design and solution architecture across multiple teams and domains. 
• Own and drive the technical strategy and roadmap for the area of responsibility. 
• Make and communicate architectural decisions, ensuring alignment with business goals. 
• Define and uphold technical standards, quality, and best practices. 

Mentorship & team development 

• Mentor and coach engineering managers, staff, and key engineers to develop technical and leadership skills. 
• Provide actionable feedback and foster continuous improvement across teams. 
• Uphold high hiring standards and contribute to talent development. 

Business alignment & representation 

• Act as a bridge between business and engineering, ensuring objectives are aligned. 
• Influence product and business strategy by articulating technical trade-offs. 
• Represent engineering in strategic discussions, planning, and external forums. 

Operational excellence 

• Ensure quality, reliability, and security are embedded in all engineering processes. 
• Lead incident response and provide expert support for critical issues. 
• Identify and address productivity bottlenecks; drive tooling improvements. 

Who You Are

• Extensive experience in system design, architecture, and technical leadership across complex domains. 
• Proven ability to set and deliver technical strategy and roadmaps. 
• Strong mentoring and coaching skills. 
• Experience aligning technology with business objectives and influencing strategy, ideally on the enterprise level or in large organisations. 
• Deep understanding of engineering best practices, quality, and operational excellence. 

What’s In It For You

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

Everyone’s Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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