Internal use only - Grade E

About us

We are The Very Group, and we’re here to help families on a budget get more out of life. We know that our customers work hard for their families and have a lot to balance in their busy lives. That’s why we combine amazing brands and products with flexible payment options on Very.co.uk to help them say yes to the things they love when they need them most.

Role Purpose

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be responsible for designing, building and running front-end and/or back-end software solutions in an agile delivery squad. This role is hands-on, you’ll be actively involved in designing, implementing and running the products and services that your squad are responsible for. You’ll help shape best practices in software engineering, then both work to and coach other Squad members into driving and ensuring high quality solutions. 

Scope of Role

Nature and Area of impact:  

• Full Software Development Life Cycle, including coding practices, frameworks, tech debt and operations for all engineering activities within your squad. 
• Work with and sometimes lead other Engineers in your Squad/ Tribe, Business Analysts, Product Owners and Architects to envision, design and deliver industry leading systems. 

• Identify, build, acquire, enhance Software Engineering standards and tools. Influencing Leads, Architects and other Engineers to agree and adopt. 

• Design and build software that balances the commercial needs of the business alongside delivering the future tech roadmap. 

• Lead and actively participate in application and database design, data flows and detailed technical design. Ensure that analysis includes the wider view of technical and business impact. 

• Own your code quality. Work with other Engineers to drive this behaviour in them 

• Own non-functional requirements around performance, security and scalability to ensure we deliver a great customer experience. Driving best practice around real-time logging, monitoring, alerting. 

• Proactively drive the enhancement of continuous integration to improve deployment processes in the squad. 

• Identify obstacles, risks and issues that may/ do impact the technical product and work with all stakeholders required to mitigate them. 

• Adhere to policies and standards that impact solutions. 

• Provide Run support for technical products within Squad. 

• Proactively support and mentor other team members, working with them to help them improve their skills.  

• Champion your Squads engineering successes and best practices both internally and externally 

• Understand the external Technology landscape and look to leverage this knowledge to enhance software engineering in your Squad/ Tribe and across The Very Group. 

About you

• Significant experience of building, integrating, maintaining and managing complex software architectures, ideally across multi-cloud environments. 

• Significant experience of Java, Spring, AWS components, pipeline technologies e.g. GitLab CI 

• Demonstrable experience of providing clear direction, coaching, mentoring and development support.  

• Be passionate about code quality, testing and other engineering best practices. 

• Significant experience of building software applications that have security, reliability, scalability, high availability and concurrency built-in from the outset. 

• A strong collaborator and communicator. 

• Proven ability to influence and negotiate with Technical Stakeholders from all Software Engineering levels, to Architects, to Heads of Tech, to Technical Operations, to external 3rd parties. 

• Computer Science degree or relevant experience. 

• A background and relevant current experience in a hands-on software engineering role is essential. 

• Confident and comfortable to share stories internally and externally to build our Very Group brand and credibility to attract and retain talent. 

• Be constantly interested in the Technology and Engineering landscapes internally and externally. 

Some of our benefits 

• Flexible, hybrid working model
• Inclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews 

• £1,000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
• 30 days holiday + bank holidays
• Udemy learning access
• Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk

• Matched pension up to 6%
• More benefits can be found on our career site 

How to apply

Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.

What happens next? 

Our Talent Acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have.

For this role after meeting our Talent Acquisition Team you can expect a 3 stage process.

First Stage - Take Home Technical Challenge - guide of 2-3 hours.

Second Stage - A Technical Interview using your Technical submission as a basis for the conversation, we will dig deeper into some of your decisions (60-90 minutes on Teams)

Third Stage - Behavioural Interview, this interview focuses more on your softer skills, how you like to work as part of a Software Engineering Team (60 minutes onsite)

If you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here.

Equal opportunities 

We’re an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.