Salary: Competitive plus Bonus and Benefits

Location: Hybrid - Slough/London

This is a Permanent, Full Time vacancy that will close in 7 days at 23:59 BST.

The Vacancy

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer (Level 6) to join our thriving business!

This role is a new key position within the IRIS Engineering Organisation and is crucial for delivering World-Class Customer Products, enhancing Developer experience, and advancing our technology.

As a Principal Software Engineer, your role involves supporting teams where the hardest work is happening, ensuring the delivery of high-quality software with predictable velocity, removing blockers, improving team skills, and facilitating inter-team communication. You will coach, challenge, and guide engineering teams on best practices, processes, and implementation.

What will you be doing?

• Own the direction of the engineering culture at the organisational level
• Drive the usage and best practices of AI Tools such as Devin, Replit, Co-Pilot, Cursor
• Work with high autonomy regarding focus areas and impact mechanisms
• Demonstrate and promote industry-recognised engineering practices for Global Cloud Platform SAAS, such as scalable, resilient, and extendable service and application designs
• Influence and shape the technical strategic direction of the platform with engineering leadership (VPs, Directors, Managers, Architects)
• Promote IRIS's technical culture externally
• Nurture and grow the internal technical culture of IRIS
• Drive harmonisation of best practices and processes across the organisation
• Lead innovative engineering initiatives across the organisation without direct authority

What we are seeking

• Experience in developing and supporting engineers' technical and career growth
• Proven impact of engineering delivery
• Experience creating and modifying applications using AI Tools
• Ability to work autonomously
• Knowledge of architectural concepts
• Understanding of cloud-native architectures
• Advanced experience with CI/CD, Continuous Delivery, and Agile methodologies
• Deep knowledge of core topics such as async, HTTP, memory management, performance optimisation, profiling, and debugging
• Experience working across multiple tech stacks
• A positive problem-solving approach
• Experience operating at enterprise scale for throughput and reliability
• Proven technical leadership and ownership of large-scale problems

Please note:

We may close vacancies early if we receive high application volumes. We recommend applying promptly.

About IRIS

IRIS Software Group is one of the UK’s largest privately held software companies, dedicated to simplifying the lives of businesses, schools, and organisations.

We provide software solutions that enhance compliance, efficiency, and accuracy, empowering our users to operate with confidence.

Over 4 million parents connect with their child's school via our software, 18% of UK employees are paid through IRIS payroll solutions, 50,000 SMEs use IRIS cloud bookkeeping, and 21,000 firms rely on us for legislative compliance.

Our operational software is critical for our customers’ success, supporting compliance, engagement, and productivity.

IRIS is committed to hiring the best, fostering an inclusive environment, and being recognized as a Great Place to Work and one of the UK's Best Workplaces for Women. We focus on employee wellbeing, diversity, trust, communication, and recognition to create a supportive and rewarding workplace culture.