Principal Engineer - Integration Services

Location: London; Sofia About Us The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide. At the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded. Together, we help audiences stay better informed and deepen their understanding of the world around them. Our Product & Tech teams drive us forward in an ever-evolving digital landscape, delivering cutting-edge products to over one million digital subscribers daily. Our growth relies on a diverse, dedicated and dynamic group of product, tech, delivery and data specialists. With a supportive culture, entrepreneurial spirit and opportunities at every turn, there are no limits to where your FT career can take you. Build a newsworthy career at the FT. Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion We believe in the power of unique perspectives and want all voices in our organisation to be heard, respected and valued. A supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves and operate to their full potential. We are committed to removing barriers for everyone, with a focus on addressing those faced by underrepresented groups. About you You are an experienced Principal Engineer or senior engineering leader with a strong background in enterprise integration, shared engineering services or platform capabilities. You have experience working across multiple teams and technology domains, with the judgement to distinguish between capabilities that should be centrally owned and standardised and those that should remain within individual engineering teams. You are comfortable operating at both strategic and technical levels. You can define a direction for shared integration and engineering capabilities while still engaging deeply enough with architecture, engineering practices, reliability and delivery to make credible technical decisions. You are also an experienced people leader who can build and develop senior engineers and create a high-performing team around a new capability. You are able to influence teams without relying solely on formal authority and can establish common approaches where responsibilities have historically been distributed. You understand that shared services succeed only when they are useful to the teams that depend on them. You therefore approach platform and integration engineering pragmatically, balancing standardisation and reuse with the needs of individual products and domains. About the team Integration Services sits within Internal Products and provides shared engineering capabilities that enable connectivity, automation and engineering quality across the organisation. The capability spans enterprise integrations, reusable engineering services and quality engineering practices that support multiple products, platforms and teams across Internal Products. As the FT continues to evolve its enterprise technology landscape and undertake significant transformation, the need for consistent, reusable and reliable integration capabilities is increasing. Two major programmes are currently running in parallel and both depend heavily on shared integration capabilities across multiple platforms and teams. At present, responsibilities are distributed across different parts of the organisation, creating risks around fragmented ownership, duplicated solutions, inconsistent approaches and limited reuse. The Principal Engineer – Integration Services will establish and lead this capability, creating clear ownership for shared services while ensuring the team remains closely connected to the engineering teams and domains it supports. What you’ll work on As Principal Engineer – Integration Services , you will establish and lead the Integration Services capability across Internal Products. You will own the technical direction, engineering capability, people leadership, delivery and operational performance of shared integration and engineering services. A key part of the role will be defining what should become a reusable Internal Products capability and what should remain owned within individual domains. You will establish common integration approaches, reusable services and engineering patterns that reduce duplication and make it easier for teams to connect systems safely and reliably. You will provide senior technical leadership across major transformation programmes, including the Commercial Technology Programme, ensuring integration decisions made within individual programmes contribute to a coherent and sustainable technology estate. You will also build and develop the team itself, establishing the engineering capability, operating model and ways of working required for a successful shared service organisation. Your responsibilities will include Integration Strategy & Technical Direction Defining the technical direction for integration services across Internal Products. Establishing principles, standards and reusable patterns for enterprise integration. Developing a clear strategy for shared integration capabilities, balancing centralisation, reuse and domain autonomy. Identifying opportunities to simplify integration architecture, reduce duplication and improve interoperability. Providing technical leadership on significant integration decisions spanning multiple platforms, teams and domains. Ensuring integration approaches consider security, resilience, scalability, observability, operability and long-term maintainability. Working with Architecture and senior engineering leaders to align integration direction with wider FT technology strategy. Establishing a clear view of the integration landscape, including major interfaces, dependencies, ownership and technical risks. Shared Services & Platform Engineering Defining and building reusable integration services and engineering capabilities that solve common problems across Internal Products. Establishing clear ownership for shared services and ensuring they have sustainable operational and engineering models. Ensuring shared capabilities provide genuine value to consuming teams rather than becoming additional layers of complexity. Setting appropriate expectations for reliability, performance, scalability, security and service availability. Establishing effective lifecycle management for shared platforms and services. Identifying opportunities for standardisation, consolidation and reuse. Ensuring teams have clear guidance on when to use shared services and when to build capability within their own domains. Engineering Quality & Automation Establishing and evolving quality engineering capabilities that improve the reliability and confidence of software delivery across Internal Products. Promoting consistent engineering practices around testing, automation, CI/CD and quality assurance where appropriate. Identifying recurring quality problems across teams and developing reusable approaches to address them. Working with engineering leaders to improve automated testing, release confidence and software quality. Encouraging engineering teams to treat quality as part of engineering ownership rather than a separate activity. Using metrics, operational insight and engineering feedback to identify opportunities for continuous improvement. Strategic Programmes & Transformation Providing senior engineering leadership to major transformation programmes, including the Commercial Technology Programme. Working across programme teams to establish coherent integration strategies across multiple platforms and workstreams. Challenging programme-specific solutions where they create unnecessary duplication, complexity or long-term dependency. Ensuring integration decisions made during transformation can be sustainably operated and evolved after programme delivery ends. Supporting technology and vendor evaluations where integration architecture is a material consideration. Helping programmes distinguish between capabilities that should be delivered as reusable Internal Products services and those that are specific to an individual initiative. People & Engineering Leadership Leading and developing the engineers within Integration Services. Establishing a high-performing team with clear responsibilities, strong engineering standards and appropriate technical ownership. Coaching senior engineers and developing technical leadership capability within the team. Building an environment that encourages collaboration, constructive technical challenge and knowledge sharing. Recruiting and developing the specialist skills required to build a sustainable integration capability. Creating succession and reducing key-person dependency across critical integration knowledge. Establishing clear expectations for engineering quality, operational performance and delivery. Building strong relationships with engineering leaders across Internal Products so the shared capability is embedded rather than operating as a separate silo. Delivery & Planning Establishing a roadmap for the development and evolution of shared integration services. Prioritising investment across reusable capabilities, programme commitments, operational work and technical improvement. Working with Product and engineering leaders to understand demand for shared services and translate this into realistic delivery plans. Managing capacity and ensuring the team can support both strategic initiatives and ongoing operational responsibilities. Identifying dependencies and delivery risks across consuming teams and programmes. Providing clear visibility of progress, risks, trade-offs and technical constraints. Operational Excellence & Reliability Owning the operational performance of shared integration services. Establishing appropriate approaches to monitoring, observability, incident management, problem management and operational readiness. Ensuring critical integrations have clear ownership, appropriate resilience and effective recovery mechanisms. Leading the response to significant incidents affecting shared services and coordinating resolution across dependent teams. Using operational data and incident learning to identify systemic improvements. Ensuring operational responsibilities are sustainable and do not depend disproportionately on individual engineers. Cross-Domain Collaboration Building strong working relationships with Principal Engineers, Engineering Managers, architects and senior engineers across Internal Products. Establishing effective mechanisms for teams to engage with Integration Services early in the lifecycle of significant initiatives. Helping teams understand integration trade-offs and select appropriate patterns and capabilities. Coordinating decisions where integration ownership crosses domain boundaries. Encouraging reuse and consistency without imposing unnecessary central control. Representing Integration Services in relevant architecture, engineering and technology forums across the FT. Vendor & Technology Partner Management Providing technical leadership in relationships with integration technology vendors and implementation partners. Challenging vendor-led solutions where they conflict with long-term FT engineering direction or create unnecessary dependency. Ensuring external partners complement rather than replace internal engineering capability. Contributing to technology evaluation, procurement and platform selection decisions. Ensuring partner-delivered work meets FT engineering, security, quality and operational expectations. Technical and leadership experience we’re looking for Significant experience in a Principal Engineer, senior engineering leadership or comparable technical leadership role. Strong experience designing, building and operating enterprise integration capabilities at scale. Deep understanding of integration architecture, APIs, event-driven systems, messaging, data flows and distributed systems. Experience establishing reusable engineering services or shared platform capabilities across multiple teams. Experience defining technical standards, engineering patterns or platform strategies across organisational boundaries. Experience leading significant transformation programmes involving multiple platforms, teams and integrations. Strong understanding of cloud technologies and modern engineering practices, preferably AWS. Experience with enterprise SaaS ecosystems and integrating them with internally developed applications. Experience with quality engineering, test automation, CI/CD and engineering productivity practices would be advantageous. Experience leading and developing senior engineers and technical specialists. Experience establishing new teams, capabilities or operating models would be highly advantageous. Strong experience influencing teams and senior stakeholders without relying solely on formal authority. Experience identifying and addressing duplicated capabilities, technical debt and fragmented ownership across complex technology estates. Strong understanding of reliability, observability, security and operational excellence. Experience working with vendors and implementation partners while maintaining clear internal technical ownership. Ability to communicate complex technical concepts and trade-offs clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. Experience balancing strategic technical direction with practical delivery realities. Characteristics we value Strong technical judgement and the confidence to make decisions across organisational boundaries. A strong sense of ownership and accountability. Pragmatism when balancing standardisation, reuse and the needs of individual engineering teams. The ability to influence without relying solely on hierarchy. A collaborative approach to building shared capabilities that teams want to use. Curiosity and a willingness to understand problems across the wider technology estate rather than optimising a single domain. Strong coaching and mentoring skills, particularly when developing senior engineers. An instinct for reducing unnecessary complexity and duplication. Confidence challenging established approaches constructively. Calm and clear decision-making during complex delivery and operational situations. An appreciation for reusable, sustainable and well-engineered technology capabilities. What’s in it for you? Our benefits Our benefits vary by location, but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available on the FT Careers website. We’ve embraced a 50% hybrid working model (averaging two to three days onsite) that fosters trust and remote adaptability while encouraging in-person camaraderie and peer learning. Additionally, we are open to accommodating specific flexible working pattern requests for all roles where feasible. Accessibility We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments/personalisation as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements or have any questions, email talent@ft.com and a member of the team will be happy to help. Further information At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may leverage AI tools as part of their job application process. Whilst we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience and qualifications.