Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer (Golang | Distributed Systems)

London – On-site

Up to £170,000 base + 25% bonus + excellent benefits

Permanent

I’m partnered with a high-growth technology company building a world-class data and services platform that processes tens of billions of monthly requests – powering real-time insights for millions of users globally.

They’re hiring a Principal Software Engineer (Golang) to join their London engineering team as a hands-on technical leader – driving architectural direction, mentoring engineers, and solving complex distributed systems challenges at scale.

The Opportunity

• Architect and scale high-throughput, event-driven systems built in Go
• Lead the evolution of real-time APIs and data platforms handling billions of requests
• Stay deeply hands-on with Golang while influencing design and long-term technical strategy
• Drive improvements in observability, testing, and performance across all services
• Mentor senior engineers and play a key role in shaping engineering culture

What They’re Looking For

• 8+ years’ backend engineering experience, ideally at Staff / Principal / Tech Lead level
• Expert-level proficiency with Golang in production
• Proven track record designing distributed systems and event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, WebSockets)
• Deep understanding of PostgreSQL, Redis, and high-performance data systems
• Strong DevOps mindset – CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability (Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry)
• Exceptional communicator, able to influence architecture and direction across teams

Nice to Have

• Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, or other cloud-native environments
• Exposure to financial data systems or blockchain technologies
• Passion for building scalable, resilient systems and leading by example

This is a great opportunity to work on high-scale systems, shape architecture at the highest level, and remain deeply technical — all within a top-tier engineering environment.

If this sounds like the kind of challenge you’re after, message me directly – happy to share full details in confidence.