Kooth plc is hiring a
Principal Engineer

Summary

The job is for a Principal Engineer at Kooth, a fast-growing digital mental health support platform based in the UK. The role involves leading engineering, technical oversight, collaboration towards commercial outcomes, and contributing to the technical strategy. Essential requirements include deep knowledge of software architecture patterns, ability to work in a fast-moving environment, strong security awareness, ability to collaborate across teams, coach and mentor, commercial outlook, bias to action, strong stakeholder management, bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent work experience.

Requirements

• Deep knowledge of software architecture patterns
• Knowledge of best practices in software engineering
• Ability to work in a fast-moving environment and to design flexible technical solutions
• Strong security awareness, as required in a regulated environment
• Ability to collaborate across teams
• Coach and mentor
• Commercial outlook
• Bias to action
• Strong stakeholder management
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or equivalent work experience

Responsibilities

• Engineering leadership
• Solve problems and deliver solutions that impact the engineering organisation as a whole
• Identify and take ownership of technical challenges
• Raise the bar for all of product and engineering; be a force multiplier in your interactions with teams and team members
• Be a coach, advisor, and mentor, as well as a technology and industry expert
• Be proactive, model a bias for action, lead on quick decision-making, and have a focus on delivery and outcomes
• Technical oversight
• Be responsible for our architecture being fit for purpose
• Design more complex parts of the system, producing design documents and driving collaboration and a shared understanding of technical direction
• Execution through influence
• Guide tech leads where necessary and use your technical expertise and your view of the wider Kooth landscape to help achieve the best outcomes
• Be deeply involved in cross-functional planning for work you’ve committed to, and take ownership of outcomes based on your decisions
• Document 'load-bearing' decisions, so people coming later can understand why we made those decisions & what else we considered. Socialise those documents and make sure they're discoverable
• Be able to break down large technical workstreams into manageable chunks and communicate those to others so the work can be better managed, and understand implementation, e.g. what must be done in which order, what work could be parallelised
• Guide our tech estate to be internally consistent, being pragmatic about decisions that don’t align with the general technical direction and disciplined about bringing it back on track
• Collaboration towards commercial outcomes
• Have the knowledge, judgement, and understanding to work cross-functionally with your business and product partners to make decisions about the roadmap
• Communicate technical ideas to a wide range of stakeholders, including more junior engineers, senior leadership including the CTO, and to colleagues in other parts of the business. You are able to pull out the key points relevant to the people you are communicating with
• Provide advice and guidance on key technical areas
• Understand key needs of your stakeholders in engineering, product and the wider business and be able to be flexible and pragmatic on how we meet those needs
• Partner with Product, Delivery, and others to help frame and align engineering priorities so that we deliver rapid value to our customers. Work closely with Product, Delivery and others in order to identify where delays elsewhere impact work you've outlined, then clearly communicate and mitigate or communicate mitigations
• Model consistency, integrity, reliability, and ease of interaction with engineering to the rest of the business

Benefits

• Flexible working: Embrace the flexibility of remote working, allowing you to create a work-life balance that suits your needs and maximizes your productivity
• Lifestyle Benefits: If you're seeking a stimulating career where your well-being, growth, and contributions are valued, we invite you to apply and become a part of our dynamic and supportive team. Join us as we strive for success together!
• At Kooth, we are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace that values and embraces the unique contributions of every individual