Principal .NET Engineer

We're seeking a Principal Software Engineer to take the lead on mission-critical front office systems within a fast-moving global trading and data environment. You'll guide a talented, multi-disciplinary engineering team, partnering with senior architects and peers across regions to design and deliver distributed, event-driven, cloud-native platforms. This is a hands-on technical leadership role focused on building robust, scalable systems while championing engineering excellence and modern delivery practices. Hybrid working available across the UK.

What you'll be doing

• Providing technical leadership to a cross-functional team delivering core front office solutions
• Partnering with architects and principal engineers across global teams to shape and uphold engineering standards
• Designing and building distributed, event-driven systems with a focus on scalability, resilience and performance
• Ensuring delivery quality through rigorous technical review, testing, and continuous improvement
• Encouraging innovation by exploring new technologies, frameworks, and approaches to enhance delivery outcomes
• Maintaining transparent communication with stakeholders, proactively identifying and resolving delivery challenges

• Strong background in leading and mentoring Agile software engineering teams
• Experience designing, building and maintaining distributed, cloud-native, event-driven platforms
• Advanced proficiency in C# with .NET Core and .NET Framework
• Solid experience with API design and implementation (REST, GraphQL)
• Expertise in relational databases and performance tuning (MSSQL, MySQL or similar)
• Skilled in cloud deployment and management (AWS or Azure)
• Broad understanding of the software development lifecycle, from design through to post-release support
• Pragmatic, delivery-driven mindset with an ability to challenge assumptions and drive technical clarity
• Strong problem-solving skills with experience using proof-of-concepts to validate ideas
• Excellent communication, collaboration and stakeholder management abilities
• Proven experience implementing scalable automated testing frameworks

Desirable

• Hands-on experience with WPF or other UI frameworks
• Exposure to financial markets or trading platforms
• Familiarity with FIX protocol and financial messaging systems
• Strong knowledge of AWS services and infrastructure best practices
• Experience with Java, JavaScript or React
• Understanding of microservices and serverless architectures
• Working knowledge of TDD, BDD or related testing methodologies