Principal Software Engineer

Principal Java Software Engineer:

Do you enjoy shaping technical direction across teams and helping organisations evolve their engineering practices?

Are you motivated by solving complex system challenges while mentoring others and driving meaningful impact at scale?

About the team:

The Submissions Technology group builds and operates platforms that support the scholarly publishing lifecycle—from submission and peer review through to editorial decisions and publication. We focus on reliability, scalability, and continuous improvement as we modernise core systems and introduce new capabilities.

About the Role
This role provides senior technical leadership across multiple teams, helping to shape architecture, engineering practices, and modernisation efforts. You will work through influence, contributing hands-on where it matters most, while supporting teams to build secure, scalable, and resilient systems. The role focuses on long-term technical health, collaboration, and practical innovation, including the responsible use of AI in software development.

Responsibilities

• Lead through influence to align technical direction across teams and domains
• Partner with architects, engineering leaders, and product teams to shape strategy and execution
• Define and evolve domain architecture, service boundaries, and integration patterns
• Contribute directly to complex or high-risk engineering work where it adds the most value
• Drive modernisation efforts, reducing technical debt and evolving toward cloud-native patterns
• Improve operational excellence through observability, automation, resilience, and incident learning
• Establish pragmatic technical standards and promote consistency across teams
• Mentor engineers in architecture, systems thinking, and engineering best practices

Requirements

• Experience operating as a senior or principal engineer across multiple teams or domains
• Proven ability to influence architectural direction and drive cross-team technical change
• Strong background in distributed systems, APIs, and integration patterns
• Experience with event-driven architectures and modern cloud-based systems
• Backend engineering expertise with Java, Spring Boot, and microservices
• Familiarity with modern frontend technologies and polyglot environments
• Experience with containerisation, CI/CD pipelines, and Infrastructure as Code
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and applying GenAI concepts in production

Work in a Way That Works for You
We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organisation. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance, and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.

Working Pattern
Working flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive.

About the Business:

Elsevier is a global information analytics company specializing in science and health. For over 140 years we’ve partnered with the scientific and medical communities to advance knowledge, improve outcomes, and foster innovation. Our content and technology help researchers, educators, and healthcare professionals in over 170 countries make critical decisions with confidence. Elsevier is part of RELX, a top 10 FTSE 100 company and global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools

We know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits. Click here to access benefits specific to your location.

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We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

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