Principal Software Engineer - Selling Experience

Marks & Spencer Plc; City of London; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK retailer is seeking a Principal Engineer to drive engineering excellence and lead the technical direction of digital platforms. You will be responsible for implementing solutions that enhance customer experience and advocate for quality assurance and performance. The role includes mentoring engineers and ensuring strategies align with the tech and product vision. Join an inclusive team committed to innovation and quality service.

Benefits

20% colleague discount

Competitive holiday entitlement

Discretionary bonus schemes

Generous pension scheme

Tailored induction and training

Wellbeing support

Charity volunteer day

Qualifications

• Implement solutions providing the best experience across devices.
• Specialize in clean code and design patterns.
• Knowledge in Information Security, designing secure solutions.
• Lead system design conversations with high complexity.
• Understand assurance, testing quadrants, and the testing pyramid.
• Lead senior engineers to desired outcomes.
• Expertise in cloud computing and automation.
• Implement Observability and Reliability technologies.
• Experience in Performance Engineering and load testing.
• Expert in reliability testing.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical excellence in product features and programs.
• Drive strategy and influence technology and product decisions.
• Champion engineering excellence and methodologies.
• Promote DevOps practices for product lifecycle automation.
• Develop and mentor engineers across the landscape.

Skills

Experience in implementing web solutions

Clean code and design patterns

Information Security knowledge

System design conversations

Quality assurance and testing understanding

Leadership skills

Cloud computing expertise

Observability and Reliability implementation

Performance Engineering experience

Reliability testing expertise

Tools

New Relic

Dynatrace

Kubernetes

Job description

Why Digital & Tech at M&S?

We're changing the way we do things, and putting industry leading innovation at the heart of how we operate; we need a stellar engineering team to make it happen. You'll be joining one of the most iconic brands in the UK on its most exciting cycle yet. We're more integrated and product led in our tech teams than ever before: learning, changing, and adapting constantly, with millions of people benefiting from your work every single day.

We have a genuine ambition to become engineering first, building and operating an elite digital platform. We are looking for people to join our community of engineers to support this transformation, build a modern digital ecosystem.

You will be championing Engineering excellence in a key area for M&S, that enables our online customers to find, evaluate and buy products. As the Principal Engineer for Selling Experience, you will support multiple teams in providing an engaging, simplified, transparent and inspirational digital experience that delivers the best online purchasing experience in the UK and Irish market. This exceptional web channel attains, retains and drives frequency of customers and aligns with the broader omni-channel experience to deliver the M&S unified customer commerce ambition.

What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day. We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special…

• After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you’re passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

What you’ll do

Your key accountabilities will include:

• 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 Engineering, Technology and Product leadership to ensure strategies align
• Develop the best and mentor other engineers 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

Who you are

Your skills and experience will include:

• Experience in implementing solutions using modern, web facing software solutions that provide the best possible experience across multiple devices
• 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
• 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 (e.g.: New Relic, Dynatrace)
• Good experience with Performance Engineering (load testing, derivations, tuning, core web vitals, page speed etc.)
• Expertise in reliability testing

Everyone’s welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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