X
Principal Engineer (contract)
Contract type
Ongoing
Work mode
Hybrid · Edinburgh, United Kingdom · Leeds, United Kingdom · Manchester, United Kingdom · London, United Kingdom · Bulgaria
Experience
Lead / principal · Not stated
Level inferred from job title
Job description
Principal engineer role at CreateFuture (Xdesign), a consultancy, focused on leading delivery of software systems for enterprise and scale-up clients with AI-assisted engineering. The role combines deep full-stack technical breadth, system thinking, consulting and commercial judgement, and technical leadership.
At a glance
- Work mode
- Hybrid · Edinburgh, United Kingdom · Leeds, United Kingdom · Manchester, United Kingdom · London, United Kingdom · Bulgaria
What you'll do
- Set AI up to succeed by treating context engineering as a craft (the right files, specs, examples and constraints) and architecting systems with clean interfaces, good naming, machine-readable specs and knowledge bases
- Review far more code than you write, catching silent assumptions, security flaws and architectural drift, and knowing where models fail
- Pick the right AI tool for the job (Claude Code for a deep refactor, an inline assistant, a sub-agent for parallel work, the right model for analysis versus generation)
- Build with AI components using evals, golden datasets, structured outputs and fallback paths
- Work across backend, cloud, data, web and mobile, seeing the platform as one system
- Frame outcomes for a COO, CTO, CIO or CEO in their own language and apply commercial and political acumen
- Communicate clearly and frequently through documents, decisions, post-mortems and design notes
- Make decisions and own them, willing to be the benevolent dictator when it is your turn
- Mentor in AI fluency, not just code: tooling, prompting and review discipline
- Communicate upwards, raise by exception, self-resolve and be trusted with financial controls
- Disagree well, telling people they are wrong with evidence and no ego, and changing your own mind when shown to be wrong
- Immerse in client environments, including on-site work and building trusted relationships in person
What we're looking for
- Outcome obsessed, not output obsessed, caring whether the problem was actually solved
- Intellectually honest about uncertainty, taking a trust-but-verify approach
- Deeply pragmatic, holding opinions loosely and deciding for the systems in front of you
- Bias toward delivery: the smallest thing that works, then iterate
- Relentlessly curious beyond any immediate need
- AI fluency as a first-class competency, including context engineering and review discipline
- Depth in at least one area but competence everywhere the system reaches
- Backend: instinct for distributed systems, APIs that age well, thoughtful data modelling
- Cloud: cost-aware and security-aware by default, reaching for IaC and composing primitives
- Data: modern pipelines, governance and lineage, vector stores and embeddings, data quality treated as seriously as production code
- Web and mobile: past the framework arguments, with a clear view on what you would pick today and able to build good enough front ends with AI
- System thinking, consulting and commercial judgement
- Leadership mentality: raising the level of everyone around you regardless of discipline
- Need little line management
Benefits
- Flexible working, including hybrid and remote options
- Office hubs in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, London and Bulgaria
- Trust to manage your time balancing collaboration with client time and focused work
- Real investment in growth both professionally and personally
- Supportive and friendly culture surrounded by smart, curious people
How to get hired
- 1Call with our Talent Acquisition Team
- 2Role specific capability interview
- 3Depending on the role, a short presentation, a practical or technical task or a values focused conversation
Apply
About CreateFuture
A consultancy that produces software for clients including Podium, PayPoint, Zuto, RL, OAG Analyser, Natwest and OAG, working in a consultancy context with enterprise and scale-up clients.
Key facts
- Consulting
- Office hubs located in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, London and Bulgaria
- Works with clients such as Podium, PayPoint, Zuto, RL, OAG Analyser and Natwest
- Uses Claude Code and agents to produce quality work at high speed
Partners & customers
PodiumPayPointZutoRLOAG AnalyserNatwestOAG
What they value
- Diverse teams build better workplaces and better products
- People feel able to be themselves and do their best work
- Trust people to do their best work
- Impact over activity