Financial Times

London, UK | Posted: 5 years ago

The Principal Engineer in FT Group Products has overall responsibility for the strategic technology direction across FT Specialist Titles and Nikkei Asian Review (NAR).

We are taking a fresh approach to both areas and looking for an engineer who can balance the practical engineering requirements of a broad product portfolio with a vision for a modern software development stack.

The intelligent application of off-the-shelf technologies blended with building the parts that truly add value is central to the success these parts of the business. An open mind and a broad understanding of the wider technology landscape will be enormously helpful.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

• Have overall responsibility for the technical approach of FT Specialist and NAR.


• Define and execute the technology strategy for both areas to transform these areas .


• Work closely with our development partner to ensure they are tightly integrated with the FT reflecting our ways of working and our cultural values.


• Develop and maintain an understanding of the business domains Specialist and NAR operate in. Use that understanding to shape the development of the platforms you build.


• Work within the department's strategy and guardrails, and contribute to their ongoing refinement.


• Have a practical approach to working with a large portfolio of products that leverage a diverse range of technologies.


• Communicate widely within the organisation to ensure best practice in other areas is understood and adopted where it makes sense to do so.

Skills and Experience

• Extensive experience using a wide range of technologies and patterns required to build modern web products and services along with the tools that enable their creation. From CDNs, networking, cloud infrastructure and databases through to performance tuning and optimisation.


• Extensive, current experience in at least one programming language, an engineer who is polyglot is a bonus.


• Have built software using the 12-factor methodology


• Experience with the tooling, monitoring, and engineering that enables highly fault-tolerant systems in cloud environments.


• A willingness to help craft the team’s culture.


• Able to balance the customer and business product needs with those needed to build high-quality products.


• Demonstrate a deep understanding of what motivates engineers and the importance of diversity and equality in a well functioning team.


• Understand how to develop talent.


• Be able to communicate clearly and concisely with the confidence to hold your own with senior management.