Purpose of the role
The Principal Engineer – Wealth Management is the senior technical leader responsible for shaping the engineering strategy, technology direction, innovation agenda and AI adoption across Wealth Management platforms within PBWM.
The role drives technical excellence, platform evolution and emerging technology adoption, ensuring Wealth Management platforms remain scalable, secure, resilient and fit for future growth.
Operating across multiple engineering teams and business domains, the Principal Engineer identifies opportunities to leverage Artificial Intelligence, automation and modern engineering practices to improve client experiences, colleague productivity, operational efficiency and engineering effectiveness. Working closely with Engineering, Product, Architecture and business stakeholders, the role provides technical leadership beyond individual products or initiatives, influencing strategic technology decisions and accelerating innovation across the Wealth Management technology estate.
Accountabilities
- Provision of guidance and expertise to engineering teams to ensure alignment with best practices and foster a culture of technical excellence.
- Contribution to strategic planning by aligning technical decisions with business goals, anticipating future technology trends, and providing insights to optimize product roadmaps.
- Design and implementation of complex, scalable, and maintainable software solutions, considering long-term viability and business objectives.
- Mentoring and coaching to junior and mid-level engineers to foster professional growth and knowledge sharing, elevating the overall skillset and capabilities of the organization.
- Collaboration with business partners, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions and ensure a cohesive approach to product development.
- Innovation within the organization by identifying and incorporating new technologies, methodologies, and industry practices into the engineering process.
Director Expectations
- To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide.
- They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.
- Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
- Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
- Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
- Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
- Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
- Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
- Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
- Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
- Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
- Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
- Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
- Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.
Key Accountabilities
- Define and evolve the technical vision and engineering strategy for Wealth Management platforms, ensuring alignment with PBWM technology objectives and long-term business priorities.
- Drive innovation across the Wealth Management technology estate by identifying emerging technologies, engineering practices and opportunities to improve client experience, operational efficiency and engineering productivity.
- Lead technical exploration, proof of concepts and experimentation activities, converting innovative ideas into scalable solutions that deliver measurable business value.
- Act as the senior technical authority across Wealth Management, providing leadership and guidance on complex engineering, architecture and technology decisions.
- Establish, govern and evolve engineering standards, reference architectures, reusable frameworks and shared platform capabilities to promote consistency, quality and reuse across engineering teams.
- Drive platform modernisation, simplification and technical debt reduction initiatives, ensuring technology investments improve long-term sustainability and agility.
- Ensure solutions meet appropriate standards for security, resilience, scalability, performance and operational support within a regulated financial services environment.
- Partner with Engineers, Architects and Product leaders to shape strategic technology investments and prioritise engineering improvements that maximise business and client outcomes.
- Influence engineering communities across PBWM, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing and adoption of engineering best practices.
- Mentor Engineering Leads, Principal Engineers and senior engineers, supporting the development of technical capability and future engineering leadership across Wealth Management.
- Define and monitor engineering health metrics, identifying opportunities to improve platform reliability, developer experience, delivery effectiveness and operational efficiency.
- Apply deep Wealth Management domain expertise to influence the design and evolution of digital journeys across client acquisition, onboarding, investing, portfolio management, advice and ongoing servicing.
All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others. All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.
Essential Skills / Experience
- Significant experience operating as an Engineering Lead, Principal Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, Lead Architect or equivalent senior technical leadership role within a complex technology organisation.
- Deep expertise across modern software engineering practices, including distributed systems, API-led architectures, cloud platforms, automation and platform engineering.
- Demonstrable experience defining technical strategy and influencing technology direction across multiple teams, products or business domains.
- Proven track record of driving innovation, modernisation and engineering transformation at scale.
- Strong understanding of engineering quality, non-functional requirements, security, resilience, observability and operational excellence.
- Experience establishing engineering standards, reusable frameworks and shared technology capabilities across large engineering organisations.
- Strong understanding of Wealth Management platforms, including customer investment journeys, portfolio management, advice and servicing capabilities.
- Ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive technical decisions without direct management authority.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business outcomes.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and developing technical capability across engineering organisations.
- Understanding of regulatory, risk and operational resilience requirements within financial services environments.
