Principal Engineer – Business Systems | Ordnance Survey NEW

Southampton, Hampshire
Lorien

Job Title: Principal Engineer – Business Systems
Location: Southampton, UK (Hybrid)
Job Type: Full Time
Salary: £74,781 – £87,244 (dependent on experience)

Clear the path. Seek the story. Do what matters.

We’re recruiting for an exceptional Principal Engineer to join Ordnance Survey, Great Britain’s national mapping service and a global leader in geospatial data and technology.

This is a rare opportunity to become the senior technical authority within the Business Systems team, shaping engineering strategy, defining technical standards, and influencing the future architecture of enterprise platforms across the organisation.

The Role

As Principal Engineer, you’ll work at the intersection of technology, strategy, and delivery, leading technical direction across multiple engineering teams while mentoring and inspiring engineers to deliver secure, scalable, and future-ready solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead complex, business-critical engineering initiatives.
• Define engineering standards, architecture, and best practices.
• Provide technical governance across enterprise platforms, integrations, and APIs.
• Shape technology strategy alongside senior stakeholders.
• Lead and mentor a team of 3 direct reports while influencing a wider engineering community of approximately 20 engineers.
• Drive engineering excellence through modern development practices and technical leadership.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience in software engineering and enterprise system design.
• Strong Azure cloud expertise.
• Experience with enterprise platforms including CRM, Finance Systems, APIs, and integrations.
• Proven success leading large-scale engineering or architectural transformation.
• Ability to influence technical strategy at senior leadership level.
• Experience providing technical assurance across complex environments.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Passion for mentoring engineers and raising engineering capability.
• Strong balance between strategic thinking and pragmatic delivery.

Desirable

• Experience within product-led or service-led organisations.
• Knowledge of Agile, DevOps, and CI/CD practices.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures.
• Track record of improving engineering capability across multiple teams.

What’s on Offer

• Competitive salary of £74,781-£87,244
• Employer pension contribution up to 12.07%
• Performance-related bonus
• 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays (increasing with service)
• Hybrid and flexible working
• Enhanced family leave
• Learning, coaching, and mentoring opportunities
• Wellbeing support and free OS Maps subscription
• Volunteering leave and matched fundraising

Interview Process

• Stage 1: Microsoft Teams introduction
• Stage 2: Competency-based interview including a technical presentation showcasing your approach to solving complex engineering challenges.

If you’re a technical leader who enjoys influencing strategy, mentoring engineers, and driving engineering excellence at enterprise scale, we’d love to hear from you.

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG – The Impellam Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.