W1 Principal Engineer

The Partnership is the UK’s most successful omnichannel retailer which includes two of the UK’s most loved department store and grocery brands with annual sales revenues in excess of £12B.

Waitrose Commercial is responsible for ensuring that Waitrose have the right products to sell, at the right price across all Waitrose sales channels. It is also responsible for making sure the business has enough stock for customers in the place they want it, across our omnichannel business.

The technology supporting Waitrose Commercial is a blend of commercially available third-party platforms, bespoke in-house systems, and tightly coupled mainframe legacy applications, all interconnected through integrations with other areas of the business. These systems must not only be highly resilient but also adaptable, enabling us to enhance operational efficiency and respond to evolving business needs.

Change to systems in this part of the business is currently delivered through projects and implemented through third-party teams. There are several in this area who deliver change and support the systems.

We are hiring for an engineering leader to help modernise and simplify a complex heritage tech stack to enable both business agility and productivity, as well as improve system maintainability. This will include leading on the uplift of the engineering capability and approaches in Commercial and to help move away from project based ways of working in order to establish Product teams and agile practices as well as change how we work with our suppliers.
As the Principal Engineer for Commercial, you will report into the Head of Architecture & Engineering for Waitrose.

Find out more about being a Software Engineer in the Partnership, and the technology we use.

• Contract type - This position is a permanent contract.

• Flexible Working: This is a hybrid working role, therefore your time will primarily be split between working from home (in the UK) and Bracknell Head Office. However, there will also be an expectation to visit other locations as the need arises.

• Most leaders in this part of the business aim for upto a day a week in the office, and occasionally business needs may require more frequent attendance. Our offices are open five days a week for those who prefer to work from the office more regularly.

Key Responsibilities:

• You will play a pivotal role in aligning the engineering strategy and roadmap for Waitrose Commercial with the overarching business objectives. Your influence will extend to key decisions that shape the operation of Waitrose Commercial systems and guide how engineering drives change across this complex business area. 

• This will involve influencing how work is managed—whether agile, waterfall, or hybrid— including the effectiveness and measurement of teams. This includes ensuring that engineering practices align with the broader Partnership engineering strategy and influencing team structure, balance, and resource models by providing key input on ways of working and team maturity to deliver optimal engineering capabilities.

• To do this you will collaborate closely with key stakeholders such as Product Leads/Business Owners, Delivery and Operations Managers, Infrastructure Leads and Enterprise Architects as well as Senior Staff Engineers, specialist engineering teams and third-parties. You will also work closely with other Principal Engineers in JLP who may be responsible for other business areas or for deep engineering specialisms such as cloud or data.

• Successful candidates will have a passion for using technology to deliver outstanding and innovative software solutions, and will have a track record of working with teams delivering complex, performant, high quality software.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need:

• Engineering background with real world experience of modern software engineering techniques such as Continuous Delivery and ideally experience of using strategic patterns of Domain Driven Design.

• Experience of the technical implementation of package solutions (such as SaaS) into large complex environments

• Experience in senior leadership role, leading across multiple teams, working with senior stakeholders and influencing multi-million pound investments in engineering

• Knowledge/experience of working with different architectural styles (e.g. monolith, service based, microservices) and integration patterns when working with different platforms (broker models, RESTful, streams, event based).

• Knowledge/experience of techniques used to increase resilience and/or scalability of systems.

• Experience of applying techniques from Lean and Systems Thinking.

• Experience of working with legacy systems

• Worked with third-party development suppliers across a range of different commercial constructs

• Will have been a hands-on software engineer for part of their career.

Desirable skills/experience you may have

• Retail experience

• Engineering management role, working across multiple teams or architecture role working across a large part of an enterprise.

• Experience of agile transformation

Next Steps

• The application form consists of a CV upload followed by application questions. Please ensure you refresh the page each time you complete a task to ensure you complete everything that you need to do before the closing date.

• If you are successful following your initial application, the next stages are: a screening interview followed by a formal interview and up to 2 informal interviews. 

• You'll be asked about any adjustments you might need to support the recruitment process. Let us know, and we'll be sure to discuss it with you.

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We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:  

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.  

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore, we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.