Principal Software Engineer - Digital Customer Experience

About us

We’re the team behind digital retailer Very. 

Our purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do. 

And we want our people to get more out of life too! If you’re high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you’ll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go. 

If you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers. ✨ 

About the team

You'll join our Digital Customer Experience (DCX) technology team, a group focused on creating seamless, engaging and high-performing digital experiences for millions of Very customers. 

DCX sits at the heart of the customer journey, owning the technology that powers how customers discover products, browse our site, engage with content and ultimately make purchases. The team plays a critical role in delivering experiences that directly impact customer satisfaction, conversion and commercial performance. 

Working across Product, Engineering, Architecture and UX, the team combines deep technical expertise with a strong customer-first mindset. We continually invest in modern engineering practices, cloud-native technologies and emerging capabilities such as AI to ensure we're building experiences that delight customers while enabling the business to move at pace. 

As a Principal Software Engineer, you'll help shape the technical direction of our front-end and digital platforms, influence engineering standards across the organisation and support teams in solving complex technical challenges at scale. 

You'll be joining a collaborative engineering community that values ownership, continuous improvement and the freedom to innovate, whilst maintaining the high standards expected of a modern technology organisation. This is an opportunity to work on technology that directly influences the experience of millions of customers and helps drive the future growth of Very. 

About the role

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership across our engineering community whilst remaining hands-on with design, architecture and delivery. 

This is an opportunity to influence technology decisions that impact millions of customers, helping us build the next generation of digital experiences using modern technologies including TypeScript, React, Node.js and AWS. 

As one of our most senior individual contributors, you'll partner with engineers, architects and product teams to solve complex technical challenges, drive engineering excellence and shape the future direction of our platforms. 

• Providing technical leadership across squads and domains, helping teams deliver high-quality software at scale. 

• Designing and building modern, cloud-native solutions using TypeScript, React, Node.js and AWS. 

• Shaping engineering standards, architectural patterns and best practices across the wider technology organisation. 

• Balancing immediate business priorities with longer-term technical strategy and platform evolution. 

• Driving improvements in software quality, performance, security, observability and resilience. 

• Identifying opportunities to simplify systems, reduce technical debt and improve developer experience. 

• Championing CI/CD, automation and modern engineering practices that enable teams to deliver quickly and safely. 

• Collaborating with Architects, Product Managers, Delivery Leads and Engineers to deliver customer value. 

• Mentoring and coaching engineers at all levels, helping to grow technical capability across the organisation. 

• Supporting the adoption of emerging technologies, including AI-assisted engineering, where they create meaningful value. 

• Acting as a technical ambassador for Very, sharing knowledge internally and helping strengthen our engineering brand externally. 

About you

You'll be a highly experienced software engineer who combines deep technical expertise with a passion for helping others succeed. 

You'll enjoy solving complex problems, influencing technical strategy and creating an environment where engineering teams can thrive. 

• Significant experience designing, building and evolving large-scale distributed systems. 

• Strong hands-on expertise with TypeScript, React, Node.js/NestJS and AWS. 

• A track record of defining technical direction and influencing engineering decisions across multiple teams. 

• Experience building secure, resilient and highly available applications in cloud environments. 

• Strong knowledge of modern software architecture, engineering patterns and development practices. 

• Experience driving improvements in CI/CD, automation, testing and operational excellence. 

• A passion for engineering quality, simplicity and continuous improvement. 

• Proven experience coaching and mentoring engineers, technical leads and senior developers. 

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex technical concepts. 

• Curiosity about new technologies and a desire to continually improve how software is built and delivered. 

• A customer-centric mindset, with an appreciation of how engineering decisions influence customer experience, engagement and commercial outcomes. 

Some of our benefits

• Flexible, hybrid working model
• Inclusive culture and environment, check out our Glassdoor reviews

• £1000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs
• 30 days holiday + bank holidays
• LinkedIn Learning access
• Bonus potential (performance and business-related)
• Up to 25% discount on Very.co.uk

• Matched pension up to 6%
• More benefits can be found on our career site

How to apply 

Please note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.  

What happens next? 

Our talent acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have. If it feels like we’re a good match, we’ll share your CV with the hiring manager to review. Our interview process is tailored to each role and can be in-person or held remotely.  

You can expect a two stage interview process for this position:  

1st stage - A one hour technical interview - this will likely involve a technical exercise with the team.

2nd stage - a one hour behavioural interview

As an inclusive employer please do let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments.  

If you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here. 

Diversity, inclusion and equal opportunities

We’re building a culture of everyday inclusion, and welcome applications from anyone who believes they can do the job. We don’t discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.

We want our recruitment process to be accessible to everyone. If you need reasonable adjustments to apply, interview, or perform a role, let us know via [email protected]. We’ll be happy to support you.

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer and have nine brilliant colleague networks - including DAWN (Disability Awareness at Very) and Think (Neurodiversity at Very) - that are helping us make Very an even more inclusive place to work.