Principal Engineer (Waitrose Supply Chain)

The Partnership is the UK’s most successful omni-channel retailer which includes two of the UKs most loved department store and grocery brands with annual sales revenues in excess of £12B. 

Our Engineering practice includes 60+ teams, working on everything from Cloud Platforms to Mobile Apps, from E-Commerce functionality to Machine Learning.

Our Engineers work collaboratively and share knowledge, and learning is extremely important to us. We support our Engineers to continuously improve their skills and keep abreast of the latest technologies.

Waitrose Supply Chain is responsible for ensuring the right stock is in the right place at the right time. In the fast moving environment of retail grocery, supply chain processes are time critical to ensure sales aren’t lost to low availability or wastage.

The technology supporting our supply chain is a blend of commercially available third-party platforms, bespoke in-house systems, and legacy applications, all interconnected through complex integrations with each other and other areas of the business. These systems must not only be highly resilient but also adaptable, enabling us to enhance operational efficiency and respond to evolving business needs.

Find out more about being a Software Engineer in the Partnership, and the technology we use.

At a glance

• Contract type - This position is a permanent contract.

• Working pattern/flexible working - We know flexible working is important to you, and it is important to us too. The Partnership has adopted a blended working approach meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business. 

• Location - This role is based at our Bracknell Head Office campus. Please note, any cost incurred as a result of travel to the office is the responsibility of the successful candidate. There is no travel allowance for this role. There is also a responsibility to visit our John Lewis branches when necessary. You will be able to claim travel expenses for these journeys.

Key Responsibilities:

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• As a Principal Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in aligning the engineering strategy and roadmap for the Waitrose Supply Chain with the overarching business objectives. Your influence will extend to key decisions that shape the operation of supply chain systems and guide how engineering drives change across this complex business area. This will involve influencing how work is managed—whether agile, waterfall, or hybrid—ensuring that engineering practices align with the broader Partnership engineering strategy, and influencing team structure and resource models to deliver optimal engineering capabilities.

• A key objective of the role is to improve the resilience and maintainability of supply chain systems. To do this you will collaborate closely with key stakeholders such as Product Leads, Delivery and Operations Managers, Infrastructure Leads and Enterprise Architects as well as specialist engineering teams. You will also work closely with other Principal Engineers who may be responsible for other business areas or for deep engineering specialisms such as cloud or data.

• Successful candidates will have a passion for using technology to deliver outstanding and innovative software solutions, and will have a track record of working with teams delivering complex, performant, high quality software.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need:

• Experience of leading and influencing engineering decisions in a complex environment.

• Experience of building and running highly performant, large scale, mission critical  applications.

• A background in software engineering.

• A good understanding of software architecture including different architectural styles and integration patterns.

• An understanding of Agile development methods such as Scrum or Kanban and techniques used to optimise for flow..

• Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery in complex environments.

Desirable skills/experience you may have

• Experience of running/building software in a complex supply chain environment such as retail or FMCG.

• Cloud Platforms such as AWS, GCP or Azure.

• Application security.

• There are opportunities to become a people manager if that is something that appeals to you.

Benefits of the Partnership and the role 

• - Hybrid Working. 

• ️ - Full - time working holiday entitlement 25 days holiday, plus public and bank holidays (this is pro-rated for part time hours).

• ⚖ - Excellent work life balance, including focus on well being and flexible working and our marketing leading equal parenthood leave Policy

• - Defined Contribution pension scheme where your contributions will be matched by the Partnership (up to 8% of pay) and, after three years’ service, you’ll receive an additional Partnership contribution of 4% of pay, regardless of whether you pay in or not

• - You’ll get Partnership discount in store and online once you complete your Earning Membership period. That’s 25% off in John Lewis & Partners (12% off electrical products, some exclusions apply) and 20% in Waitrose & Partners (some exclusions apply) You’ll also be able to nominate someone you live with to share your discount.

• -  Simple cycle to work support scheme

• - We’re really proud of our exclusive hotels based in some of Britain’s most beautiful areas and once you’ve been with us for three months, you’re welcome to explore them

• - Health Care cover 

• -  Learn more about our extensive range of exciting benefits that you could enjoy when you join us, visit - https://www.jlpjobs.com/about/benefits/