Principal Engineer / Technical Lead (FP&A Platform)
Cork, Ireland
A growing fintech engineering team is building a modern financial planning and analytics platform used by financial institutions to manage forecasting, performance analysis, and regulatory reporting. The platform brings together budgeting, planning, and profitability capabilities into a single system that supports finance and treasury teams with reliable, data-driven insights.
The Cork-based engineering group is responsible for the product end-to-end and is currently undertaking a significant technical evolution — modernizing legacy architecture, introducing cloud-native practices, and integrating AI-powered development workflows to improve both engineering productivity and product capability.
This role is suited to a highly experienced Principal Engineer who thrives as a hands-on technical leader. You will take ownership of some of the most complex engineering challenges involved in modernizing an established production platform while maintaining stability for customers.
Rather than focusing on management or coordination, this position is centered on deep technical contribution. The successful candidate will spend the majority of their time writing production code, solving difficult architectural problems, and mentoring engineers through example.
You will help guide the transition from legacy architecture to modern patterns through incremental, carefully executed changes that deliver continuous improvements without disrupting the existing platform.
What You'll Be Responsible For
Driving Platform Modernization
Lead the technical transformation of an established financial software platform. Break down legacy architectural patterns into modular, maintainable services and define practical migration paths that allow modern components to coexist with existing systems.
Remain deeply involved in development, contributing production-quality code on a daily basis. Lead complex implementations, conduct detailed code reviews, and collaborate closely with engineers to solve difficult technical problems.
Raising Engineering Standards
Establish strong development practices across the team including coding standards, testing approaches, and design patterns. Lead architecture discussions and design reviews that elevate the technical capabilities of the entire engineering organization.
Delivering Incremental Improvements
Ensure modernization happens progressively rather than through disruptive rewrites. Each technical improvement should deliver measurable benefits such as improved performance, better testability, enhanced developer experience, or increased platform scalability.
Managing Legacy-to-Modern Transitions
Work within the realities of an existing production system. Develop strategies that allow legacy components and modern services to coexist while gradually shifting the architecture toward more maintainable patterns.
Exploring AI-Enabled Development
Leverage modern AI-assisted development tools to increase engineering efficiency and accelerate modernization work. Identify opportunities where AI capabilities could unlock new product functionality or improve development workflows.
Support the growth of engineers across the team through code reviews, technical discussions, and collaborative problem solving. Promote a culture of engineering excellence and pride in craftsmanship.
Professional Background
10+ years of experience in software engineering with continued hands-on development
Strong history of solving complex engineering challenges within teams of 15+ engineers
Experience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards across a team
Background in financial services or regulated industries is beneficial but not required
Technical Expertise
Expert-level experience with .NET / C#, including modern architectural practices and performance optimization
Strong full-stack development experience, including TypeScript and Angular
Cloud-native application development experience (Azure preferred, though other cloud platforms are transferable)
Database design, optimization, and migration strategies for high-volume systems
Designing scalable APIs and managing versioning and backward compatibility
Experience implementing testing strategies across unit, integration, and end-to-end testing layers
CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment practices
Large-scale refactoring and modernization approaches such as incremental decomposition or strangler patterns
AI and Modern Engineering Practices
This team actively incorporates AI-assisted development into day-to-day workflows. Candidates should already be comfortable using AI coding tools to improve development speed, assist with problem solving, and enhance productivity.
Experience exploring emerging AI capabilities in software development or product design is highly valued.
What Success Looks Like (First Year)
Measurable progress in reducing legacy architecture across the platform
Improved engineering productivity and code quality across the team
Demonstrable improvements in system performance and reliability
Stronger engineering practices and collaboration across the team
Increased development efficiency through adoption of modern tooling and workflows
Why This Role Is Interesting
Opportunity to modernize a large-scale production platform used by financial institutions
Highly hands-on technical leadership role with significant engineering influence
Work within a team that values modern engineering practices and high-quality code
Opportunity to help shape future product direction as the platform evolves
Strong collaboration with engineering leadership and architecture teams
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