Group GTI
Principal Java Engineer
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Principal Java Engineer
Department: Tech
Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time
Location: Wallingford, UK - Hybrid
Description
Mission:
As Principal Java Engineer, you will provide technical leadership for GTI's core SaaS platform. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will own the technical direction, architecture, and engineering standards of the platform without direct line management responsibility. You will work closely with Product, Data, Operations, DevOps, and QA teams to deliver secure, resilient, and scalable solutions while mentoring engineers through technical leadership and best practice.
Outcomes
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Platform architecture is scalable, resilient, secure, and supports current and future business needs
- Own the application architecture and technical direction across multiple products and services.
- Design, implement, and review high-quality Java and full-stack solutions, APIs, and integrations.
- Lead performance optimization, scalability, and resilience initiatives.
- Drive security best practices, vulnerability remediation, and secure software development lifecycle (SDLC) practices.
- Work closely with Data, Operations, DevOps, and QA teams to ensure architectural alignment and operational excellence.
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Product roadmap is delivered successfully through strong technical leadership and effective engineering execution
- Provide technical leadership across multiple Agile development teams.
- Translate business and product requirements into robust technical solutions.
- Support engineering teams in the successful delivery of roadmap commitments.
- Facilitate collaboration across teams to remove technical blockers and mitigate delivery risks.
- Mentor and guide developers to improve capability, quality, and delivery outcomes.
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Engineering standards, architecture principles, and best practices are consistently applied across development teams
- Define, maintain, and champion engineering standards, architectural principles, and development best practices.
- Conduct design and code reviews to ensure quality, maintainability, and consistency.
- Author new development processes and continuously improve existing engineering practices.
- Promote secure, scalable, and maintainable software design across all teams.
- Support and mentor team members to drive technical excellence and continuous improvement.
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Production systems are reliable, observable, and operationally excellent
- Lead root cause analysis and resolution of complex production issues.
- Drive improvements in system observability, monitoring, and operational performance.
- Ensure applications are designed and operated to meet reliability, availability, and performance targets.
- Partner with Operations, DevOps, and QA teams to maintain production stability and service quality.
- Embed a culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement, and proactive issue prevention.
Technologies you will be using:
- Java 21 (LTS)
- Spring Framework 6 / Spring Boot 3.5
- Hibernate ORM 6.6+, JPA
- Apache Tomcat 11, IntelliJ IDEA
- AI Tooling (e.g., Claude, Codex, Gitlab Duo, etc.)
- REST APIs, OpenAPI, Microservices, Event-driven architecture (RabbitMQ)
- Containers, Docker, AWS, Linux
- CI/CD with GitLab Pipelines & Jenkins
- Observability: logging, metrics, and monitoring
- MySQL, Apache Solr
- Front-end UI (e.g., Angular)
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Person Specification
- Strategic and systems-thinking mindset
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
- Ability to influence through technical leadership rather than line management
- Proactive, pragmatic, and outcome-focused
- Strong mentoring and collaborative working style
- High standards of engineering excellence and continuous improvement
- Trusted technical advisor
- Excellent attention to detail
Work Experience, Knowledge & Skills:
- Degree in Computer Science (or equivalent experience)
- Extensive Java software engineering experience with significant experience in technical leadership
- Expert knowledge of Java, JVM performance, and modern language features
- Deep experience with Spring Boot, Hibernate/JPA, and enterprise application architecture
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, scalability, resilience, and performance tuning
- Experience with cloud-native applications, Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD
- Strong knowledge of application security, OWASP principles, and secure development practices
- Knowledge of a modern front-end node-based framework
Other Information
- Permanent role – 37.5 hours per week. Monday to Friday 9am-5:30pm.
- 3-month probationary period.
- Candidates applying for roles at GTI will be subject to background screening. You can find out more about our background screening and the recruitment of ex-offenders by reading our policies.
If you would like to speak to a member of our team to find out more information about this vacancy or you have any questions, please get in touch - recruitment@groupgti.com.
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