Principal Engineer (Waitrose Supply Chain)

At a glance Contract type - This position is a permanent contract. Flexible Working: This is a hybrid working role, therefore your time will primarily be split between working from home (in the UK) and Bracknell Head Office. However, there will also be an expectation to visit other locations as the need arises. Our Engineering team currently works from the office roughly twice a week to connect and on a more ad-hoc basis to attend key meetings, but again the frequency is dependent on the business needs. Key Responsibilities: As a Principal Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in aligning the engineering strategy and roadmap for the Waitrose Supply Chain with the overarching business objectives. Your influence will extend to key decisions that shape the operation of supply chain systems and guide how engineering drives change across this complex business area. This will involve influencing how work is managed—whether agile, waterfall, or hybrid—ensuring that engineering practices align with the broader Partnership engineering strategy, and influencing team structure and resource models to deliver optimal engineering capabilities. A key objective of the role is to improve the resilience and maintainability of supply chain systems. To do this you will collaborate closely with key stakeholders such as Product Leads, Delivery and Operations Managers, Infrastructure Leads and Enterprise Architects as well as specialist engineering teams. You will also work closely with other Principal Engineers who may be responsible for other business areas or for deep engineering specialisms such as cloud or data. Successful candidates will have a passion for using technology to deliver outstanding and innovative software solutions, and will have a track record of working with teams delivering complex, performant, high quality software. (Link->https://engineering-principles.jlp.engineering/principles/) Essential skills/experience you’ll need: Experience of leading and influencing engineering decisions in a complex environment. Experience of building and running highly performant, large scale, mission critical applications. A background in software engineering. A good understanding of software architecture including different architectural styles and integration patterns. An understanding of Agile development methods such as Scrum or Kanban and techniques used to optimise for flow. Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery in complex environments. Desirable skills/experience you may have Experience of running/building software in a complex supply chain environment such as retail or FMCG. Cloud Platforms such as AWS, GCP or Azure. Application security. There are opportunities to become a people manager if that is something that appeals to you. Next Steps The application form consists of a CV upload followed by application questions. Please ensure you refresh the page each time you complete a task to ensure you complete everything that you need to do before the closing date. If you are successful following your initial application, the next stages are: a screening interview followed by a formal interview and 2 informal interviews. You'll be asked about any adjustments you might need to support the recruitment process. Let us know, and we'll be sure to discuss it with you. #LI-HEADOFIFICE #LI-Hybrid #LI-LS1