Principal Engineer

Hi we're Glean. We make study software that improves your confidence and ability to learn.

• We're a SaaS scale up and one of the fastest growing tech companies in the North.
• There's 100+ of us around the UK with our HQ in Leeds.
• Our software is award-winning and used by 100,000s of students at over 800 universities & colleges worldwide.
• We're growing so we can achieve our mission to support 1 million students to become better learners by 2026.

Glean are looking for a talented, passionate Principal Engineer who wants to be part of a small, beautifully formed, and growing engineering team. We are focused on pragmatic delivery, with quality at the forefront of everything that we do. We use a mixture of front-end (TypeScript, React), back-end (JVM / Kotlin), and mobile (Flutter) technologies with an automated build pipeline (Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm). We are trusted by the business to own our technology stack and processes, and we repay this trust by delivering consistently. We aspire to be the best engineering team we can be, by constantly asking, "given what we know now, is there anything we should change?".

As a Principal Engineer your role involves collaborating in a multi-disciplinary squad to build, implement and support software that brings value to our users and customers while aligning to our Engineering Principles .

You will:

• Contribute to the overall technical strategy and roadmap for Glean Engineering, aligning technology changes with business goals.
• Define and drive the architectural vision for Glean's systems and platforms, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability.
• Research, evaluate, and recommend new technologies and tools to improve existing systems or drive innovation.
• Lead and oversee complex projects, often involving multiple cross-functional squads and significant technical challenges.
• Identify and champion innovative solutions that have a significant impact on Glean's products.
• Influence technical decisions and direction at a high level, ensuring alignment with broader strategic goals.
• Mentor and develop other engineers, helping them to grow their technical skills and leadership abilities.
• Represent Glean at conferences, meet ups, or other industry events, sharing knowledge and building relationships.
• Contribute to the technical community through publications, presentations, or open-source contributions.

• Extensive object-oriented and/or functional programming experience.
• Highly proficient in HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript frameworks (TypeScript and React).
• Significant experience with Kotlin for server-side development.
• Proficient with Flutter framework and dart programming language for mobile applications.
• Strong knowledge of SQL (PostgreSQL) and NoSQL.
• Promotes best practices in automated testing, continuous integration, automated deployment, and code quality.
• Actively mentors others, fostering trust, and contributing to a positive team culture.
• Championing continuous learning, developing new skills, and leading by example to advocate for a flexible, team-oriented mindset.
• Strong skills with "passionate views, loosely held" - articulate ideas clearly but remain open to other perspectives.
• Able to analyse complex technical problems, breaking them down, identifying patterns, and using critical thinking to craft and evaluate solutions with clear trade-offs and collaborative insight.

Not every one of the above is essential, but hopefully it gives an idea of what we find useful day to day.

£80,000- £90,000 dependent upon experience

️ 33 days annual leave (Inclusive of bank holidays)

3 gifted days off at Christmas
EMI Share Options Scheme

Generous individual learning and training allowance

Truly flexible hours to suit when you work best

Full home working set up and beautiful collaborative office space

Nomad working policy with family travel insurance

Enhanced 26 weeks maternity and 4 weeks paternity (fully paid)

Health cash plan (from glasses to massages)

6% employer pension contribution

Free city centre parking in Leeds

We have a beautiful office space in Leeds and we love it when we get together to collaborate in person. We typically operate a hybrid way of working, however some of our roles support remote working within the UK, if you live more than 50 miles from the office.

We'll review your application and provide a response within 1 week. Even if it's not the news you'd hoped for, we appreciate it's good to know either way.

If we invite you to meet with us for interview, here's an overview of what the process will look like:

1. Recruitment Screening call with Courtney or Cece (30 minutes)
2. Take-home Technical task (
3. Technical Interview exploring your technical task with Matt and another dev from the team (1 hour 45 minutes)
4. Architecture Interview with Matt and Mala (1 hour)
5. Culture and Values Interview with Mala and Josh our CTO (1 hour)

Ahead of your interviews you will receive a confirmation email outlining who you'll be meeting and when, anything you'll need to prepare in advance and any resources we think you might find helpful.