Job Specifications
Internal use only - Grade E
About Us.
We're the team behind digital retailer Very.
Our purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do.
And we want our people to get more out of life too! If you're high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you'll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go.
If you love making a difference, you'll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers.
About The Teams
Our software engineering teams are responsible for designing, building, integrating, and managing technology across all products and functions. They focus on developing secure, highly available, cloud-based solutions, utilising open-source technologies where appropriate. By employing APIs as a standard for integration, they facilitate robust communication between internal and external systems. Our teams adopt data and event-driven approaches, working iteratively and continuously to deliver high-quality solutions.
This role sits within our Retail Technology team, they own the creation and maintenance of our product catalogue and the prices we sell products at. We set pricing strategy, including when to run offers and which types of promotions to use. We manage product set-up end to end, on-site copy, categorisation, and navigation to help customers find products easily.
We also manage supplier contracts, stock planning, and forecasting to ensure timely replenishment. The Retail team are looking to leverage AI capability to improve our price decisioning process to improve our margin as an organisation and better value for our customers. Along side this we want to create more bespoke product copy and attribution so customers can find the products they want more easily. The roles will be linked to new squads being set up to deliver these initiatives and maintain, run and enhance them going forward.
About The Role.
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be responsible for designing, building and running front-end and/or back-end software solutions in an agile delivery squad. This role is hands-on, you'll be actively involved in designing, implementing and running the products and services that your squad are responsible for. You'll help shape best practices in software engineering, then both work to and coach other Squad members into driving and ensuring high quality solutions.
What you'll be doing:
Lead the full software development lifecycle, including coding practices, frameworks, technical debt, and operations within your squad
Collaborate with Engineers, Product Owners, Business Analysts, and Architects to design and deliver industry-leading systems
Influence and implement engineering standards and tools, driving adoption across squads and tribes
Design and build software that balances commercial needs with the future tech roadmap
Take ownership of code quality, non-functional requirements (performance, security, scalability), and best practices for logging, monitoring, and alerting
Drive improvements in continuous integration and deployment processes
Identify and mitigate risks, obstacles, and issues impacting technical products
Provide run support for technical products within your squad
Mentor and coach other engineers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement
Champion engineering successes internally and externally to build our brand and attract talent
Stay ahead of the curve by understanding the external technology landscape and applying insights to enhance our engineering practices
About You
Extensive experience in building, integrating, and managing complex software architectures, ideally across multi-cloud environments
Strong hands-on experience with Java, AWS components, and CI/CD tools (e.g., GitLab CI)
Proven ability to mentor and guide less experienced engineers
Passionate about code quality, testing, and engineering best practices
Skilled in building applications with security, reliability, scalability, and high availability from the ground up
Excellent collaboration and communication skills
Degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
Comfortable sharing knowledge and stories internally and externally to strengthen our engineering brand
Some Of Our Benefits
Flexible, hybrid working model
Inclusive culture and environment
£1,000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
30 days holiday + bank holidays
Udemy learning access
Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk
Matched pension up to 6%
More benefits can be found on our career site
How To Apply
Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if
About the Company
We're the people behind Very, one of the largest digital retailers in the UK and Ireland.
Our purpose is simple. We help families get more out of life. In fact, we believe that everyone deserves to get more out of life. Our customers, our own talented teammates, and the communities we work with.
That's why careers at Very are more than a job. We're a place where brilliant people belong, grow, and are inspired and empowered to make a difference.
Heaps of flexibility, great reward and benefits, and an inclusive culture wher...
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