Principal Engineer - Contract - Outside IR35
London, UK
Posted on Jun 26, 2026
We are currently looking for an experience Principal Engineer to join us on a contract basis.
This is a hybrid position and will require 3 days per week on client site in Central London.
Role responsibilities:
- Define and drive technical strategy, architecture, and engineering standards across the Personalisation domain
- Design and deliver scalable systems supporting personalisation, search, recommendations, and ML-powered features
- Partner closely with Product, Data Science, and Design to deliver customer-centric solutions
- Lead and influence technical decision-making across multiple teams and platforms
- Mentor and support senior engineers, helping to raise the overall engineering capability
- Improve engineering quality, reliability, and productivity through best practices, tooling, and platform enhancemen
Who you are:
- An experienced technical leader with a strong background in Java/Python and large-scale production systems
- Strong experience working with Machine Learning systems and collaborating with Data Science teams
- Skilled in system design and architecture, with the ability to deliver scalable, high-quality solutions
- Comfortable working across cross-functional environments with multiple stakeholders
- Passionate about growing others and driving engineering excellence
- A strong communicator who can influence technical and business decisions at all levels"