Principle Engineer

Principle Engineer
Remote - 2-4 days a month in London
£600 a day - Inside IR35
Requires Active SC Clearance

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to join the SAS PPPT Leadership Team. The ideal candidate will provide strategic technical leadership across the platform, applications, ingest pipelines and live services estate. The successful candidate will be accountable for engineering governance, technical assurance, platform reliability, operational resilience and delivery across multiple teams and suppliers.

The candidate must demonstrate significant experience in the following:

Platform Engineering & Infrastructure

• AWS cloud platform
• Terraform
• Docker
• NGINX
• PostgreSQL (EC2 and RDS)
• Transit Gateway
• API Gateway
• AWS Virtual Desktop
• Linux administration
• Windows administration
• VPN and OpenVPN technologies
• Elastic and Kibana
• GitLab Source Control

DevOps & Automation

• Jenkins
• Groovy
• CI/CD pipeline design and implementation
• Infrastructure as Code
• Platform observability and monitoring
• Performance management and troubleshooting

Service Management & Operational Support

• Live service management
• Incident, change and problem management
• ServiceNow (SNOW)
• Production support within 24x7 operational environments
• Supporting secure and business-critical services

Leadership & Delivery

• Lead engineering strategy and technical roadmaps.
• Provide technical governance and assurance across multiple teams.
• Manage technical risks and dependencies.
• Coordinate engineering delivery activities across platform, development and support teams.
• Mentor and develop engineers at all grades.
• Manage up to 6-8 direct reports where required.
• Lead delivery and operational decision-making in the absence of other senior engineering leaders.

Experience operating within Agile and DevOps delivery models.

Desirable Skills:

Application & Integration Technologies

• C#
• .NET
• Entity Framework
• JavaScript
• React
• Vue.js
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• REST APIs
• Microservices architecture

AI & Data Technologies

• AWS SageMaker
• Large Language Model (LLM) integrations
• AI-assisted analytics solutions
• Python-based data analysis tooling

Architecture & Governance

• Enterprise cloud architecture
• Security architecture and secure-by-design principles
• Technical assurance and governance
• Disaster recovery and business continuity planning

COTS Product Experience

• Experience supporting Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products in secure environments.
• Knowledge of intelligence or law-enforcement platforms.
• Support and troubleshooting of analytical platforms such as SOLAR, MAT or equivalent capabilities.

Stakeholder Management

• Excellent communication skills.
• Ability to engage effectively with senior business and technical stakeholders.
• Experience working within government, policing, national security or highly regulated environments.

Job Description:

• Lead and mentor multiple engineering teams, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation and continuous improvement.
• Provide technical assurance across cloud infrastructure, applications, ingest pipelines and AI capabilities.
• Lead the design, implementation and operation of AWS-hosted services and platforms.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents and critical service events.
• Act as senior technical authority for engineering decisions and risk management.
• Support secure networking technologies including Transit Gateway, API Gateway, VPN and OpenVPN solutions.

Day to day task will include

• Provide technical leadership and direction across the platform, application, infrastructure and operational support teams.
• Define and maintain engineering standards, best practices and technical governance processes.
• Lead technical assurance activities across engineering work streams, ensuring solutions meet security, operational and architectural requirements.
• Support engineering delivery planning, prioritisation and technical decision-making across multiple teams and suppliers.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, service disruptions and critical operational events.
• Identify, manage and mitigate technical risks, dependencies and delivery constraints.
• Review and approve solution designs, implementation approaches and significant technical changes.
• Mentor, coach and develop engineers across all grades, promoting engineering capability and professional development.
• Collaborate with Product Managers, Delivery Managers, architects, suppliers and senior stakeholders to support successful delivery outcomes.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across engineering, operational support, platform management and service delivery functions.
• Maintain oversight of platform reliability, operational resilience, security posture and service performance.
• Support the development and implementation of engineering road maps, technical strategy and service modernisation initiatives.

• Willing to be part of a 24/7 L3 support team (on call) if required

To learn more, please do reach out to Jess Walrond at Sanderson Government and Defence at

Reasonable Adjustments:

Respect and equality are core values to us. We are proud of the diverse and inclusive community we have built, and we welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and perspectives. Our success is driven by our people, united by the spirit of partnership to deliver the best resourcing solutions for our clients.

If you need any help or adjustments during the recruitment process for any reason, please let us know when you apply or talk to the recruiters directly so we can support you.