Lead Principal Engineer

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.