Principal Engineer (Fullstack)

At AKQA the Principal Engineer role is at the pinnacle of both software and cloud engineering & web development disciplines. An engineer who has achieved mastery of their craft and relishes new challenges and is comfortable researching, adopting and shaping new technologies, inside and out of their proven domain of experience, drawing parallels from across the technology landscape. This role shares similarities with ‘Staff Engineer’ in other organisations and demonstrates thought and practical leadership within our engineering capability.

AKQA believes in the imaginative application of art and science to create beautiful ideas, products and services. With an entrepreneurial and collaborative approach, we design adaptive digital services and applications that capture the imagination, delivering immersive experiences for our clients.

Located in London (Farringdon), United Kingdom, you will be working in a progressive, meritocratic environment, with access to world renowned thought leadership from all disciplines and working with some of the brightest minds in their fields.

You should be an established lead engineer and practitioner of the latest web and cloud technologies; building best in class digital applications, serving users on the modern technology landscape, whatever that may be. 

In particular development of Node.js and Java applications and systems integrations, API design and development, DevOps activities, building and implementing servers, databases, serverless architectures as well as implementation of security mechanisms and monitoring; on AWS, Azure or GCP cloud hosting.

ROLE REQUIREMENTS

• Hands on design and development of large scale projects.
• Proactive in engineering communities and thought leadership both internally and externally. 
• Line management and coaching of senior and junior engineers, as well as near and off-shore project engineers, whilst maintaining high levels of productivity.
• Work closely with others to ensure good collaboration across all disciplines and to facilitate the solving of day-to-day challenges.
• Active participant in idea generation amongst a multi-disciplinary agency team.
• Ideate, architect, implement and achieve buy-in of solutions.
• Analyse client’s business goals and objectives in order to build the right technical solutions, and if needed drive for change.
• Minimise technical risk and ensure a high-quality output. 
• Implement testing strategies and promote rapid but high-quality development practices.
• Identify bottlenecks within delivery processes as they occur and be able to help influence behaviours within the team to help resolve these and protect the technical delivery.
• Operate in lean, agile or hybrid approaches.

You will be a self-starting technologist who can draw parallels across a technology landscape and isn’t restricted by a specific skill set. However below is a list of skill sets we would expect;

• Strong understanding of AI and ML approaches and potential use cases.
• Experience in consuming and architecting AI solutions, including workflow tooling, frameworks and SDKs.
• Expertise in Node.js and secondarily Java and/or .NET.
• Expertise in the latest JavaScript frameworks such as React, Next.js and Node.js. 
• Expertise in Microservices, MACH, ‘JAMStack’, Serverless and event-driven architectures.
• Expertise in code distribution and package management with the npm registry.
• Expertise in provisioning cloud services with Serverless, Terraform or similar, particularly AWS or relevant experience with Azure or GCP.
• Expertise developing and consuming HTTP APIs such as REST and GraphQL.
• Expertise integrating SaaS products, such as Headless CMSs, and other API first Marketing and Design Technologies (Figma).
• Expertise in build and code quality tools, including tests and test automation.
• Expertise in DevOps, scripting, CI/CD approaches and implementations, with AWS Pipelines, Azure DevOps (Repos, Pipelines, Artefacts).
• Expertise in Designing and implementing Codebase architectures such as package strategy, monorepo’s, code branching and code workflows.
• Experience with Cloud hosted SQL and noSQL databases.
• Experience with PaaS providers such as Vercel, Netlify and Amplify.
• Experience with Web Rendering approaches such as SSG, ISR, SSR, CSR and hybrid approaches.
• Experience developing PWAs, Web workers and Web APIs.
• Experience in Webapp performance optimisation, scalability, profiling and testing.
• Data Engineering & Architecture
• Familiarity with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or other relevant AI/ML frameworks
• Security and compliance design & implementation
• Mobile app development (native and/or Cross platform)

QUALITIES AND CHARACTERISTICS

• Computer Science Degree or equivalent industry experience.
• 8+ years’ industry experience.
• Be able to understand and take on vision and ideas, design upon those ideas, and communicate and gain developer buy-in for implementation.
• Sharp attention to detail and a passion for new technology.
• Be able to talk for yourself and technology, expressing opinions backed up by reasoned argument.
• Advocate of technical delivery methodologies such as Agile (SCRUM, KANBAN and Innovation Sprints) and opinion on the strengths and use cases of each.
• Advocate for improvements to processes, quality, and security.
• Analytical and positive mindset with a personable and professional approach.

AKQA is an Equal Opportunities Employer, we believe that diversity is vital to AKQA’s ability to provide our clients with the best recommendations and are committed to fostering a varied and inclusive work environment. Your race, color, ancestry, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability or veteran status have no bearing on our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.