Principal Engineer

Location: Leeds. One day a week on-site, occasional client travel.

Clearance: SC held or eligible. Sponsorship available.

Process: Two stages. One held on-site in Leeds.

The Role

A leadership seat at account level, not a senior engineering seat with a better title.

You would own the technical direction of a client engagement and run the people delivering it. Time splits between the client relationship and your teams. Hands‑on coding is not the focus.

Briefs arrive loosely defined. Turning a vague problem into an architecture a team can build is most of the job.

Scope

• Own solution architecture across complex, multi-stakeholder programmes
• Act as the senior technical voice with client stakeholders and translate decisions for non-technical audiences
• Run teams. A lead here has three or four engineers. A principal has roughly double that, or several leads on larger programmes
• Weigh technical calls against cost and commercial reality, and flag where more value can be added
• Mentor engineers and shape internal engineering practice
• Consultancy or client-facing delivery experience. The hard gate. Strong technologists have been turned down for lacking it
• Presence. Someone you would put in front of a client to lead a programme without hesitation
• Genuinely multi-language. Engineering judgement and architecture matter more than any one stack
• Credible across cloud, CI/CD, engineering and architecture
• Track record leading engineers and owning a programme technically

Useful

• Existing SC clearance

A lead ready for the step up will be considered, with salary pitched accordingly.

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