Job Specifications
We are looking for a Principal Java Technologist to provide technical leadership across multiple teams and initiatives within a large, complex retail organisation. This role goes beyond a single squad: you will act as a technical authority, mentor, and problem-solver, shaping architectural decisions, unblocking delivery challenges, and raising engineering standards across the platform.
You will work closely with engineering leadership, product, and business stakeholders, influencing both technology direction and product outcomes, while remaining hands-on where it matters most. Retail experience is essential, ideally within high-scale, customer-facing or payments-heavy environments.
This is a permanent opportunity and would require you onsite in London Paddington 3 days a week.
What You'll Be Doing
Technical Leadership & Thought Leadership
Lead deep technical discovery sessions and architecture reviews across teams and projects.
Anticipate technical and operational challenges, proposing pragmatic, scalable solutions.
Act as a trusted technical advisor to engineering, product, and senior stakeholders.
Influence product and business decisions through a strong understanding of trade-offs, risk, and value.
Hands-on Software Engineering
Write and review high-quality Java code (Java 17+) using frameworks such as Spring Boot or Micronaut.
Design and build resilient backend services supporting high-volume, secure retail and payment transactions.
Develop and oversee integrations with acquiring banks, PSPs, payment gateways, and fraud platforms.
Step in where needed to unblock complex technical challenges or critical deliveries.
Architecture & Integration
Champion event-driven architectures using Kafka and enterprise integration patterns.
Drive consistent, scalable microservices design across multiple teams.
Balance long-term architectural direction with short-term delivery needs.
Cloud, DevOps & Operability
Design, build, and support cloud-native platforms (Azure preferred) using Kubernetes and Terraform.
Set standards for CI/CD using GitHub Actions, ensuring reliable and repeatable releases.
Own and promote observability, monitoring, and alerting using tools such as OpenTelemetry and Dynatrace.
Advocate for operational excellence, resilience, and production readiness.
Security, Compliance & Risk
Champion secure-by-design principles and best practices across all services.
Ensure systems align with PCI DSS, PSD2, and SCA requirements.
Embed data protection and security considerations into architecture and delivery from day one.
Mentoring & Engineering Excellence
Mentor engineers across all levels, from junior to senior and lead.
Raise the bar for code quality, testing, and engineering practices.
Help define and promote standards for code review, testing strategies, delivery, and on-call/operational support.
Foster a culture of learning, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Continuous Improvement & Innovation
Continuously improve platform reliability, performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.
Stay ahead of technology trends and identify opportunities to innovate within the retail and payments space.
Challenge existing approaches constructively and drive positive change.
Requirements
What we are looking for
Proven experience as a Principal Java Engineer / Technologist in large-scale, backend-heavy environments.
Experience working across multiple teams, providing leadership beyond a single product or squad.
Strong Java expertise (Java 17+) with Spring Boot or Micronaut.
Solid experience with Kafka, event-driven architectures, microservices, and enterprise integration patterns.
Strong understanding of retail and payment systems, including PSP integrations, fraud, tokenisation, and settlement flows.
Cloud experience (Azure preferred), including Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines.
Working knowledge of PCI DSS, PSD2, and SCA.
Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.
Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments with a strong DevOps and test-driven mindset.
Retail experience is mandatory, ideally in high-volume or customer-facing platforms
Benefits
We offer
Competitive salary including self-proposed salary increases
Flexible working arrangements
25 days holiday plus bank holidays. After 2 years you are entitled to 1 additional day/ year up to 30 days
Annual profit distribution
Enhanced Maternity, Paternity, Shared Parental and Adoption leave and pay
Enhanced pension scheme (up to 8% matched)
Growth opportunities, including access to Udemy
Private Medical Healthcare with Aviva
A dynamic, innovative, and supportive work environment, where your ideas and contributions are valued
Opportunities for professional development and career advancement within a global company
Annual company team-building trip, Anniversary and Christmas party
The chance to work on cutting-edge projects that are transforming the fintech
About the Company
Software Engineering Applications, including Web and Mobile, are at the core of what we do at Mindera.
We partner with our clients, to understand their product and deliver high performance, resilient and scalable software systems that create an impact in their users and businesses across the world.
You get to work with a bunch of great people, where the whole team owns the project together.
Our culture reflects our lean and self-organisation attitude. We encourage our colleagues to take risks, make decisions, work in a co...
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