Job detail for Senior Principal Software Engineer

JOB DETAILS

JOB BAND: E

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time

DEPARTMENT: Dev Ops - Media Tech

LOCATION: London, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Cardiff or Newcastle – Hybrid

PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £95,000-£105,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The BBC Dev Operations function within Media Tech is looking to appoint a Senior Principal Software Engineer to provide senior technical leadership across Operational Excellence, Reliability and Security Engineering. The role will identify systemic problems across a large and diverse Product Engineering organisation and turn them into scalable engineering solutions, common standards and reusable capabilities that simplify the estate, reduce duplication, improve efficiency and close capability gaps.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

Working across engineering teams and with architecture, service management, DevOps/SRE and security partners, the SPSE will combine hands-on technical leadership with strategic influence. They will shape and deliver cross-cutting improvements spanning operational maturity, resilience, observability, DevSecOps and application security, including the adoption of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) capabilities, while exploring Agentic Dev Operations and AI-enabled automation to improve how operational and security engineering is performed at scale.

YOUR KEY AND IMPACT

• Identify recurring and systemic operational, reliability and security engineering problems across Product Engineering, then design scalable solutions, common patterns and reusable capabilities that standardise approaches, simplify the estate, drive efficiency and close capability gaps.
• Define and embed pragmatic standards, guardrails and engineering practices for reliability, resilience, observability, service performance and operational readiness, balancing consistency with the needs of autonomous engineering teams.
• Provide technical leadership for the ongoing DevSecOps programme, integrating security into engineering workflows and helping shape the adoption and implementation of Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) platforms or equivalent capabilities to improve vulnerability visibility, prioritisation and remediation.
• Identify, evaluate and lead opportunities to apply Agentic Dev Operations, AI-enabled tooling and automation across operational and security engineering, turning emerging technology into controlled, measurable improvements in engineering effectiveness and service outcomes.
• Shape cross-cutting technical strategy and reference approaches for Dev Operations; work directly with engineering teams on complex operational and security challenges; organise and lead work across engineering, product, architecture, service management, DevOps/SRE, security and other enabling functions; and create clear technical guidance, reference patterns and learning that help teams adopt better practices.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• Significant experience providing senior technical leadership in a large, complex software engineering environment, with evidence of identifying systemic problems that cut across teams and turning them into scalable engineering solutions, standards, platforms or reusable capabilities.
• Deep technical expertise across modern software engineering, cloud and distributed systems, reliability/SRE, observability and operational engineering, with the ability to simplify complex estates and improve consistency without creating unnecessary centralised friction.
• Strong DevSecOps and security engineering experience, including leading or materially contributing to an ongoing DevSecOps improvement programme and implementing Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) platforms or comparable application security capabilities integrated into the software delivery lifecycle.
• Practical understanding of Agentic Dev Operations, AI-enabled engineering and automation, with the judgement to identify high-value use cases, introduce appropriate controls and translate emerging approaches into measurable operational or security outcomes.
• Demonstrated success in driving measurable improvement across operational maturity, reliability, engineering effectiveness or security posture, with a strong external perspective and curiosity about emerging practices that could improve how a large Product Engineering organisation operates.
• A strong organiser, leader and communicator who can bring structure to ambiguous cross-cutting problems, build alignment across senior technical and non-technical stakeholders, communicate complex ideas clearly and drive delivery through influence as well as direct technical leadership.

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.