Principal of backend

About SchemeServe SchemeServe is insurance software like no other. Hosted in the cloud for MGAs, brokers and insurers, the SchemeServe platform boasts unique flexibility, unstoppable innovation and truly Obsessive Support. Started in 2000 by our CEO, Adam, SchemeServe has grown from strength to strength, never having taken outside investment. We're proud of how far we've come and how loyal we've stayed to our Core Values. We're fully remote (we were doing it before it was fashionable!), although we get together twice a year for Team Retreats. We prize self-development and encourage everyone to keep learning and challenging themselves. Free books? Mentoring? Professional development? You got it. We also offer flexible working, paid charity days, a fantastic, relaxed and open company culture and free biscuits through the post. We genuinely believe this is the best place you could ever work. If you're excited, good! So are we. Come and join the Insurtech revolution! Principal Backend Engineer UK Remote We're looking for an exceptional Principal Backend Engineer to help make backend engineering across SchemeServe better. You'll be one of the most technically experienced engineers in the organisation and the CTO's primary technical partner for backend engineering, helping shape our architecture, engineering principles and technical direction. But this isn't primarily a feature delivery role and your job isn't to personally build everything you help design. Your real job is to make our engineering organisation better at building great software. You'll work alongside engineers and teams, helping solve difficult problems, challenging their thinking and developing their technical skills and judgement. What We Mean By Principal This is a deeply technical role. You'll need the depth to understand complex backend systems, architecture, security, performance, resilience and maintainability; review designs and implementations; spot risks; and challenge experienced engineers. But technical knowledge alone isn't enough. We want someone who understands there isn't always one "correct" way to build software. Patterns, standards and best practices are useful tools. They aren't commandments. We care about finding the most appropriate solution to the problem in front of us. That means understanding the problem, business, existing platform, risks and likely future – and making pragmatic decisions based on the trade-offs. Sometimes the right answer will be a new service or technology. Sometimes it'll be improving what we already have. Sometimes the boring solution really is the best solution. We're quite comfortable with that. How You'll Lead Success in this role comes through influence rather than authority. We don't want every difficult technical decision to end with: "We'd better ask the Principal Engineer." If an engineer proposes an approach you disagree with, we don't just want you to replace it with your own. Understand their thinking. Ask questions. Challenge assumptions. Explore the trade-offs. Share your experience. And be prepared to change your own mind too. The goal is to leave that engineer better equipped to solve the next problem, not just holding the answer to this one. Your technical impact should multiply through the people around you. You'll remain close enough to the code to understand what's actually happening and occasionally roll up your sleeves to prototype, investigate a difficult problem or unblock a team. But if after a year you've personally written loads of brilliant software while everyone around you is working exactly as they were before, we haven't succeeded. The Technical Challenge Our platform has been evolving for more than 25 years. At its heart is a mature C# .NET Framework 4.7 monolith, alongside an expanding ecosystem of modern C# .NET 10 and TypeScript services. Our backend estate includes: • .NET Framework and modern C#/.NET. • TypeScript services. • Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL and Redis. • Azure cloud infrastructure. • Cloudflare platform services. • API-first architecture. • Git-based development workflows. We're continuing to modernise, but we're not interested in modernisation for modernisation's sake. We aren't trying to win an award for having the most fashionable architecture diagram. We want a secure, reliable and maintainable platform that can support SchemeServe for many years to come – and we want you to help us decide what should evolve and, just as importantly, what doesn't need changing. What You'll Do You'll work closely with our CTO and engineering teams to: • Shape our backend engineering strategy, architecture and technical direction. • Help engineers make better technical and architectural decisions. • Develop sensible engineering principles and guardrails without replacing good judgement with rules. • Guide the continued evolution of our monolith and modern service-based platform. • Coach and mentor engineers, developing their technical skills and judgement. • Review significant designs and architectural decisions and challenge unnecessary complexity. • Champion security, quality, testing, observability, resilience and performance. • Identify technical risks and help teams navigate them. • Evaluate technologies and patterns based on their value to SchemeServe rather than their popularity elsewhere. • Balance long-term engineering quality with short-term business needs. • Occasionally contribute directly to implementation when that's genuinely the best way to help. • Be a generally awesome person. What We're Looking For You'll need: • Deep expertise in modern backend engineering and strong commercial C#/.NET experience. • Strong knowledge of software architecture, distributed systems and API design. • Experience with mature legacy applications and modern service-oriented architectures. • Strong cloud architecture experience, ideally Azure. • Excellent understanding of databases, security, testing, maintainability and modern software delivery. • Experience shaping engineering principles and practices across teams. • A track record of making engineers around you better through mentoring, coaching and technical leadership. • The ability to challenge experienced engineers constructively without becoming a gatekeeper. • Strong opinions, loosely held – the confidence to challenge and the humility to change your mind. • Excellent communication and the ability to influence without relying on authority. • Excellent technical judgement, balancing quality, complexity, risk, cost and business value. Most importantly, we're looking for someone who asks: "What's the right solution for us?" rather than: "What's the way everyone else is doing it?" Nice To Have • Experience modernising large monolithic applications. • Commercial TypeScript backend experience. • Cloudflare or edge technology experience. • SaaS platforms at scale. • Financial services, insurance or another regulated industry. • Observability, platform engineering or SRE experience. • AI-assisted development and engineering productivity tooling. You don't need to tick every box. If you've got the technical depth, judgement and ability to make engineers around you better, we'd rather have a conversation than lose a great candidate because you haven't used one particular technology. What Success Looks Like Within your first year: • Engineers are making stronger technical and architectural decisions with greater confidence. • Our engineering principles are understood rather than blindly followed. • Technical discussions are constructive, pragmatic and result in clear decisions. • Security, reliability, maintainability and performance concerns are identified earlier. • We've made sensible progress modernising our platform without adding complexity for complexity's sake. • You've made a lasting positive impact on both our software and the people who build it. Ultimately, we don't want SchemeServe to become dependent on you for every difficult technical decision. We want SchemeServe to become better at making those decisions because you're here. Why Join SchemeServe? • Fully remote UK-based role. • Twice-yearly company retreats. • Flexible working. • Dedicated professional development support. • Paid charity days. Friendly, supportiv... 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