Lead Principal Engineer

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety involved. Then you’ll realise this is a modern software engineering environment, because it has to be. We’ve made significant investment in the standards and principles that shape how we work. We iterate, learn, experiment and champion ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to exciting opportunities across everything from AI to reusable tech.

Lead Principal Engineer

Location: London / Hybrid Working

Lead the Future of Engineering at Sainsbury's Tech

At Sainsbury's, technology powers experiences for millions of customers every week. As our Lead Principal Engineer, you'll play a pivotal role in shaping the future of engineering across the organisation.

This is one of the most senior engineering leadership positions within Sainsbury's Tech. You'll lead our Principal Engineering community, influence technology strategy across the business, and drive the standards, practices and capabilities that enable high-performing engineering teams to deliver exceptional outcomes.

Working at the intersection of technology strategy, engineering practice and organisational leadership, you'll act as a trusted advisor to senior technology leaders while fostering a culture of engineering excellence across the organisation.

What You'll Be Doing

Drive Engineering Excellence & Technical Leadership

• Provide senior technical leadership across engineering teams, raising the bar on quality, standards and modern engineering practices.
• Define, evolve and champion engineering standards, ensuring consistent adoption and measurable improvements in engineering maturity.
• Act as the senior escalation point for complex technical challenges and significant technology decisions.
• Lead the evolution of software engineering practices across architecture, security, cloud platforms and delivery.

Lead and Grow the Engineering Community

• Line manage and support our Principal Engineers, creating alignment across engineering standards, technology choices and ways of working.
• Coach Principal Engineers, Staff Engineers and engineering leaders to accelerate capability, technical mastery and organisational impact.
• Own and evolve the engineering competency framework and career pathways.
• Shape engineering workforce strategy, succession planning and talent development.
• Oversee engineering recruitment standards and assessments across C4-C6 engineering levels.

Shape Strategy and Practice Evolution

• Define and influence engineering strategy aligned to organisational objectives and long-term technology vision.
• Partner with Directors of Engineering, Heads of Engineering and senior technology leaders to continuously evolve engineering practices and team structures.
• Develop and execute a multi-year roadmap for engineering maturity, tooling, standards and ways of working.
• Ensure engineering decisions balance delivery outcomes, technical debt and long-term sustainability.

Champion High-Performance Engineering

• Drive adoption of Agile and Lean engineering principles at scale.
• Coach teams on flow-based metrics, including cycle time, throughput and MTTR.
• Lead improvements across CI/CD, automation, testing, infrastructure as code and secure software delivery.
• Embed evidence-based decision making through engineering performance and operational metrics.

What We're Looking For

Essential Criteria

• Proven experience operating as a Principal Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, Chief Engineer, Engineering Director or equivalent senior technical leadership role within a large-scale technology organisation.
• Deep understanding of software engineering, architecture, cloud-native technologies and modern technology platforms.
• Strong track record of establishing and evolving engineering standards, governance and technical best practices.
• Experience leading, coaching and developing highly experienced engineering leaders, including Principal and Staff Engineers.
• Expertise in Agile, Lean and modern product engineering approaches at scale.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive organisational change through technical leadership.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for executive and non-technical audiences.
• Strong technical judgement with the ability to make complex cross-domain decisions that balance risk, innovation, delivery and long-term sustainability.
• Passion for engineering excellence, inclusion, talent development and creating high-performing engineering cultures.

Desirable

• Experience within large-scale retail, e-commerce or customer-facing digital organisations.
• Knowledge of engineering practices across complex multi-channel technology environments.
• Experience leading enterprise-wide engineering transformation and capability uplift initiatives.

What's In It For You?

• Flexible hybrid working with a balanced approach to home and office
• Annual bonus scheme
• Car allowance
• Private healthcare
• Generous holiday allowance
• Pension scheme
• Colleague discounts across Sainsbury's, Argos and Habitat
• Discounts on gyms, restaurants, holidays, retail and much more

Ready to shape the future of engineering at Sainsbury's Tech? We'd love to hear from you.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new — whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to save 10% on your shopping online and instore at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat, and we regularly increase the discount to 15% at points during the year. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 65% of salary (which may vary for Nectar360), depending on how we perform (in cash and shares).Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy up to an additional week's holiday, and we provide private healthcare. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, salary advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. You'll also receive a company car cash allowance unless you are going to travel 10,000 business miles in your role, then you'll be able to choose a car. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).