Principal Software Engineer is required for an innovative, well‑funded early‑stage renewable energy technology scale‑up to lead the architecture and development of a new data platform while remaining hands‑on with an existing Java‑based SaaS platform.
Cambridge/hybrid, with remote work within the UK (with some team meetups).
This is an exciting opportunity for a strong Java Software Engineer with significant experience in data platforms, data engineering or modern data architectures, including Data Mesh, data pipelines and technologies such as Apache Iceberg.
You’ll play a key role in shaping the technical direction of a growing business, combining greenfield platform architecture with hands‑on software engineering and technical leadership.
Key skills required for the Principal Software Engineer
- Strong Java development experience, ideally Spring Boot or Micronaut, building scalable microservices and enterprise SaaS applications.
- Data Platform Architecture/Data Engineering – experience designing and building scalable data platforms, data pipelines or distributed data systems.
- Good working understanding of software architecture and design patterns, ideally within a Domain Driven Design (DDD) context.
- Opinionated on good practices around resilience, scalability and maintainability of large‑scale software systems.
- Knowledge of Data Mesh, data lakes, lakehouse architectures or modern data processing patterns.
- Experience with technologies such as Apache Iceberg, Kafka, Spark, Flink or similar data engineering tools.
- Strong software architecture skills, including distributed systems, microservices and ideally Domain-Driven Design (DDD).
- Microservice networking and service meshes (such as Istio).
- Experience with Kubernetes, ECS, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP) and modern DevOps/CI/CD practices.
- Kafka and distributed systems
- Ability to provide technical leadership, influence architectural decisions and remain hands‑on with development.
This is a Java-first engineering role requiring strong data platform expertise, rather than a pure Data Engineer or Data Architect position.
What you’ll do as a Principal Software Engineer
- Lead the architecture, design and build of a new data platform, defining technical approaches and technology choices.
- Remain hands‑on developing and enhancing the existing Java‑based SaaS platform.
- Design scalable data pipelines, ingestion and processing capabilities using modern data engineering technologies.
- Shape the architecture of cloud‑native microservices and distributed systems.
- Collaborate with product and engineering teams to translate requirements into robust technical solutions.
- Drive engineering best practices, code quality, testing and continuous delivery.
- Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across the development team.
Why this role?
- Greenfield opportunity to architect and build a new data platform from the ground up.
- Java + Data Engineering – a varied role combining hands‑on software development with modern data architecture.
- Join a well‑funded, growing technology business following a recent $3m seed investment.
- Work with modern cloud‑native technologies within a collaborative, technically driven engineering team.
- Make a genuine impact on technology supporting the renewable energy sector.
- Significant technical ownership and influence without moving away from hands‑on engineering.
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