Principal Software Engineer

About PSG-CP

Pearson is the world's lifelong learning company, and PSG-CP (Pearson Software Group - Content Platform) is the organization powering how that learning gets created, enriched, delivered, and measured. PSG-CP's focus is on content. We handle authoring, semantic enrichment, transformation, delivery, assessment, and analytics, serving every Pearson line of business and millions of learners worldwide. We are reshaping the platform around AI in a serious way, and this Principal Engineer role is pivotal in shaping the vision, strategy, and execution of technology and architecture.

This is a high-impact, hands-on technical leadership role focused on improving engineering effectiveness, accelerating delivery, and ensuring technical excellence across the organization. You will not be embedded within a single team; instead, you will work across teams on PSG-CP initiatives, complex technical challenges, and architectural decisions. 

You will partner closely with Engineering Managers, Staff Engineers, Product, and DevOps to assess technical feasibility, and drive architecture decisions for future high-impact, AI-native PSG-CP capabilities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead technical feasibility reviews and share architecture for enterprise-scale AI-native PSG-CP capabilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across multiple squads, focusing on high-impact initiatives and critical path work

• Unblock complex technical challenges that span systems, teams, or domains

• Lead and contribute to architecture and system design decisions, ensuring scalability, simplicity, and long-term maintainability

• Drive technical consistency and best practices across teams (design patterns, standards, tooling)

• Partner with the Engineering Manager and Staff Engineers to support delivery without taking on people management responsibilities

• Contribute directly to code when needed, especially in high-risk or high-priority areas

• Mentor and guide senior engineers and technical leads through coaching, design discussions, and knowledge sharing

• Partner with internal and external stakeholders to identify, assess, and co-develop Ai-native innovative capabilities to PSG-CP

Required Skills and Competencies:

• Prior experience building content authoring / management platforms is a must

• Full-Stack Engineering, Modern Development Tools (Advanced): Build and prototype end-to-end across frontend, backend, and infrastructure. Experience with at least one of the following: Front End like React, Angular; Back End like Java, Spring, Node JS, Python

• Cloud Computing, API Management, DevOps, Data Security, Information Security (Advanced): Lead technical execution and ensure compliance. Prior working experience in a cloud computing environment like AWS/GCP is highly desired

• Collaboration, Innovation, Cross-Functional Working, Technical Acumen, Problem Solving (Advanced): Influence across teams and partners, shape ideas, and drive differentiated solutions.

• Comfort with Ambiguity, Builder Mindset (Advanced): Operate effectively in undefined, fast-moving, early-stage environments.

• Ability to operate as a force multiplier across teams, elevating overall engineering quality and speed

• Strong architectural thinking with a focus on scalability, simplicity, and business impact

• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence without authority both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced, and evolving environment

• Demonstrated ability to work with global teams across time zones

Qualifications (Education & Experience): 

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent experience

• 15+ years of experience building and scaling full-stack applications

• Proven experience operating at a staff or principal level, influencing multiple teams or large systems

• Strong background in system design, distributed systems, and API architecture using event driven microservices

• Demonstrated ability to solve ambiguous, cross-cutting technical problems

• Experience driving technical strategy, standards, and architecture across teams

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