Job purpose As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you’ll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serves millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues! With ethical values that run right through the company’s core and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it’s an exciting time as we’re redefining ourselves into a digital first and engineering-led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator. We are seeking a passionate Principal Software Engineer to join us working across Enterprise Integration at M&S. As a technical leader, you will shape the strategy and engineering excellence of the integration fabric that connects our warehouse operations, retail systems, SAP landscape, and partner ecosystem. This is a transformative role, you'll be leading the modernisation of our integration estate and building the cloud-native platform that will power M&S for the next decade. Reports to Head of Software Engineering M&S peers Heads of Software Engineering, Heads of Product, Senior Technical Programme Managers, Enterprise Architects What makes this role different: This is a ground-floor opportunity to shape the future of integration at M&S. You'll be defining the target architecture, building the platform capabilities, and leading the engineering journey from where we are today to a modern, cloud-native estate. You'll need to be equally comfortable discussing messaging patterns, debugging a production incident, and presenting platform strategy to leadership. You'll operate across the full spectrum from hands-on technical contribution to strategic influence. Impact we're looking for: Define the future state - Shape the target integration platform architecture and the roadmap to get there Simplify integration flows - Identify and eliminate unnecessary complexity in business-critical integration paths Build platform capabilities - Create the patterns, frameworks, and self-service tooling that enable teams to integrate faster and safer Improve reliability - Drive measurable improvements in incident rates and mean time to resolution Strengthen security posture - Embed security controls across messaging, API, and data platform Key Accountabilities & Responsibilities The Principal Software Engineer role is the embodiment of ‘solving problems through technology’ with key responsibilities as follows: Lead technical excellence from design to operations and launch of core product features or strategic programmes Drive technical direction and influence our overall strategy informing decisions on both Technology and Product investments as well as teams’ setup Champion Communities of Practice to help establish engineering excellence at M&S Lead by example via contributions to our engineering ecosystem Pioneer and promote methodologies like clean code and clean architecture Advocate for engineering productivity, delivery quality and operational excellence through a continuous ecosystem Drive DevOps practices to automate the Product development life cycle and ownership demeanour Partner with both Engineering, Technology and Product leadership to ensure strategies align Develop the best and mentor other senior engineering roles across the entire landscape Promote effective innovation across all of engineering Advocate and strategize for continuous industrialisation and product-minded tech capabilities Inspire ideas to foster purpose and mastery to engineering teams, leading them towards autonomy and maturity Amplify engineering teams by efficiently unblocking them with direction, leading upward, and establishing alignment Raise the profile of MS Tech through public content and contribution/creation into open-source technology Support recruitment, onboarding and internal and external brand outreach activities Tech Stack M&S uses a variety of technologies across its Integration Estate. It spans IBM technologies (MQ, App Connect Enterprise, DataStage, DB2), Mule, Apigee, MongoDB, and Azure cloud services. You'll need to understand this breadth, the strengths and constraints of each platform Essential Experience Significant track record of strategic and innovative thinking, as well as execution and implementation Specialist in clean code and implementation of design patterns for common problems. Depth of knowledge in Information Security, you can design, quality review and quality assure solutions and services with security controls embedded. Confident driving system design conversations, building systems characterised by high levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity Able to analyse current processes, identify, and implement opportunities to optimise processes, and lead and develop a team of specialists to deliver service improvements Experience of using a variety of methods of prototyping. You know how to share methodologies and can mentor others. You look at strategic service design end to end Strong ability to influence industry-based models for the development of new technology applications. You develop effective implementation and procurement strategies, consistent with business needs. You ensure alignment to relevant technical strategies, policies, standards, and practices Strong understanding of quality assurance, testing quadrants and the testing pyramid, and how to apply them Ability to lead senior engineers and technical customers to a desired outcome, without prescribing it Authoritative skills at cloud computing (network, security, serverless, Kubernetes etc) and automation Experience with implementation of Observability and Reliability using market technologies (.: New Relic) Good experience with Performance Engineering (load testing, derivations, tuning, core web vitals, page speed Expertise in reliability testing Able to influence people at senior levels and from the highly technical to non-technical Desirable experience Previous software engineering community leadership experience Professional presentation delivery at internal and external events An ambition to be an open-source contributor, technology writer or speaker Advocate and experience of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery Advanced experience of DevOps: you build it, you run it Cares about the business and the bigger picture with significant prior examples Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken and able to adjust for different audiences A senior leadership mentality that is willing to take ownership. Demonstrable entrepreneurship in previous organisation(s) What’s in it for you Being a part of M&S is exactly that – becoming a part and playing your part. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and always evolving business built on core values. Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special… 20% Colleague discount on most things from furniture, fashion and food. A first-class welcome to M&S with a tailored induction and a wide range of training schemes to help with your learning and development. Having options to progress is something we’re proud of at M&S. Attractive annual bonus, based on company performance and personal objectives. Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days! Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices website. Including GymSave – that offers up to 25% off Gym Memberships and the option to become an M&S Shareholder using our ShareSave & ShareBuy Schemes Charity Volunteer Day – A paid day away from work to support your chosen charity. A very generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance Every colleague at M&S has access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support – this includes access to our 24/7 Virtual GP, PAM Assist to support you & your family as well as many other schemes Everyone’s welcome M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the retail industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact. We’re an in-person business and have core collaboration days in our Support Centre each week. For most teams, this is 3 working days where we come together to collaborate, innovate, and serve our customers brilliantly. We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working. If you consider yourself to require reasonable adjustments to any part of our recruitment process, we invite you to share those requirements with us when completing your application. We will make every effort to ensure your needs are met to provide a fair and transparent process of assessment.
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