Principal Software Engineer - HR

All the details The Principal Engineer is the most senior individual contributor in engineering, setting technical direction, leading architectural decisions and aligning technology investment with business strategy. They combine deep technical expertise with mentorship and broad organisational influence to enable secure, resilient and maintainable solutions. Aligned to the People & Labour sub-domains, this role leads the modernisation of the Azure microservices and integration estate supporting colleague, HR and workforce management capabilities. The ecosystem includes SaaS platforms such as Oracle HCM and Blue Yonder Workforce Management, along with Azure services that integrate with external providers. The successful candidate will combine strong engineering judgement with an understanding of people, HR and labour processes. Due to high interest, this role may close earlier than advertised. We recommend applying as soon as possible. What You'll Do Your key accountabilities will include:

• Own the technical strategy and roadmap for the People & Labour sub-domains, with a particular focus on modernising Azure microservices, integrations and data flows.
• Lead system design and architecture across teams, products and enterprise platforms, guiding decisions on APIs, event-driven architecture, SaaS integration and build-versus-buy approaches.
• Mentor engineering managers, staff engineers and key engineering talent, fostering technical excellence, continuous improvement and high hiring standards.
• Partner with HR, Payroll, Workforce Management, Product, Architecture, Security and Data stakeholders to align technology and business objectives and communicate technical trade-offs effectively.
• Drive operational excellence through improved observability, resilience, incident management, CI/CD, developer experience and the adoption of AI across the product and software development lifecycle. Who You Are Your skills and experience will include:
• Extensive experience in system design, architecture and technical leadership across complex, business-critical domains.
• Proven experience modernising Azure-based distributed or microservices architectures.
• Strong knowledge of APIs, asynchronous messaging, SaaS integration, observability, security, resilience and continuous delivery.
• Understanding of People and Labour domains, including areas such as core HR, colleague lifecycle, payroll, absence, time and attendance, labour forecasting or workforce scheduling.
• Strong mentoring, influencing and stakeholder management skills, with experience handling sensitive colleague and workforce data. Tech stack Experience with technologies and platforms including:
• Microsoft Azure
• Azure Microservices Architecture
• APIs and Integration Services
• Event-Driven Architecture and Asynchronous Messaging
• CI/CD and Modern Engineering Tooling
• Observability, Monitoring and Resilience Tooling
• Oracle HCM / MyHR
• Blue Yonder Workforce Management What's in it for you? Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We're inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing. Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:
• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you've completed your probation
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you Everyone's welcome