Principal Engineer - AI and Python

Role overview

Act as a hands-on principal engineer helping teams adopt AI-assisted software development as a core engineering capability. You will combine production coding, technical leadership, mentoring and product thinking to improve development workflows, raise engineering quality and demonstrate how agentic tools can accelerate meaningful outcomes.

Responsibilities

- Shape engineering practices and development patterns suited to AI-assisted delivery, challenging inefficient or outdated ways of working. - Remain hands-on in production development, embedding with teams to solve complex problems and demonstrate effective use of AI tools. - Coach engineers through pairing, code reviews and practical guidance on tool selection, prompting, context preparation and review discipline. - Lead adoption of AI-first approaches across engineering teams in a pragmatic, sustainable way. - Work with technical leads and product managers to connect engineering improvements with product value, delivery speed and enhanced capability. - Explain the impact of new AI-enabled methods to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Requirements

- Principal-level engineering experience and a record of building high-quality production software. - Strong hands-on ability in a common backend language such as .NET, Java, Python or an equivalent technology. - Deep practical experience with several generative AI or AI-assisted development tools, using them effectively in professional software delivery. - Ability to mentor and influence experienced engineers while remaining close enough to implementation to lead by example. - Willingness to rethink the software development lifecycle and introduce new workflows based on evidence and practical results. - Strong communication skills, technical curiosity and enthusiasm for improving engineering craft.

Benefits and work setup

Flexible working is available, including hybrid and remote arrangements, with office hubs in the UK and Bulgaria. Occasional travel to client sites or offices may be required. Listed benefits include 35 days of leave including bank holidays, private medical insurance, enhanced parental and adoption leave, financial coaching, a 5% pension match and 40 hours of paid learning and development.