Principal Developer Full Stack

This is your chance to lead the charge in building high-impact, enterprise-grade applications that scale - fast. We're looking for a hands-on technical leader who thrives in the full-stack world of Java (Spring Boot) and Angular, and can drive a modern, cloud-native architecture using microservices, containerization, and DevOps automation. From designing robust APIs to embedding AI-assisted development, this role is built for someone who can think strategically and code tactically.

You won’t just be building apps , you'll be shaping how custom software is delivered across the organisation. This means championing full continuous delivery in the cloud, driving performance, security, and observability standards, and leading by example in test-driven development and CI/CD best practices. You'll mentor developers, influence architectural direction, and help define a culture of technical excellence that accelerates innovation and scales with the business.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

Software Design and Development

• Leads the development, enhancement, and maintenance of enterprise-grade full-stack applications using Java (Spring Boot) and Angular within a microservices and micro-frontend architecture.
• Provides technical leadership in designing and implementing scalable, maintainable, and high-performing backend and frontend solutions.
• Ensures best practices in API development, leveraging RESTful services, Open API, and Swagger for documentation.
• Provides technical leadership in implementation of DevOps practices, including Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), and infrastructure as code.
• Drives performance optimisation, code refactoring, and the adoption of modern development practices such as asynchronous processing and event-driven architectures.
• Stays up to date with emerging technologies, including AI-assisted development tools and cloud-based AI services, evaluating their relevance for business use cases.

Quality Assurance

• Collaborates with quality assurance peers and ensures adherence to Quality standards, test automation strategies, and continuous improvement processes on review of quality metrics.
• Champions a shift-left testing approach, ensuring security, performance, and compliance requirements are addressed early in the development lifecycle.
• Implements automated testing frameworks and continuous integration processes to improve software quality and maintainability.
• Fosters a culture of test-driven development (TDD), behaviour-driven development (BDD), and exploratory testing.
• Collaborates with DevSecOps teams to embed security testing and vulnerability assessments, ensuring continuous maintenance of application vulnerability state.

Operations, Maintenance, Support, and Documentation

• Champions incident management and observability strategies, ensuring system uptime, scalability, and performance in production.
• Ensures adherence to SLAs, SLOs, and error budgets, aligning operational goals with business requirements.
• Leads post-mortem reviews and continuous improvement initiatives, driving long-term solutions for recurring issues.
• Ensures documentation is comprehensive and up to date, covering architecture, deployment strategies, APIs, and operational procedures.
• Promotes a self-service approach focusing on developer experience and developer productivity.

Data and Architecture

• Champions the enterprise-wide architecture strategy, ensuring alignment with cloud-native, microservices, and security best practices.
• Leads scalability and reliability improvements, working with cloud platforms such as Azure (AKS, Cosmos DB, Service Bus, Azure SQL).
• Guides teams in performance tuning, scalability optimisation, and cost-efficiency initiatives for cloud-based infrastructure.
• Engages in proof-of-concept initiatives to evaluate new tools, frameworks, and services, ensuring technical innovation is balanced with business value.

Knowledge, Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to degree level in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
• Expert-level proficiency in Java (17+) and Spring Boot, including deep architectural knowledge.
• Extensive experience working with a distributed system architecture and design principles.
• Strong experience with containerisation (Docker) and cloud deployments (Azure).
• Understanding of Kubernetes and its core concepts.
• Experience with the Azure cloud platform, or a comparable cloud environment.
• Experience with enterprise-scale frontend development including JavaScript and Angular.
• Extensive experience designing and implementing relational databases, as well as working with non-relational databases such as MongoDB or Azure Cosmos DB.
• Experience with event-driven architecture and messaging patterns, including queuing and topic-based systems and strong familiarity with the JMS API.
• Deep understanding of performance optimisation and security best practices.
• Extensive experience of the testing pyramid, unit testing, E2E functional testing, and automation strategies.
• Extensive experience of delivery with agile methodologies.
• Exceptional leadership and team management skills.
• Ability to mentor and develop junior and mid-level engineers.
• Strong stakeholder management, collaborating with business and product teams.
• Strong problem-solving abilities with a focus on scalability and maintainability.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to champion continuous improvement initiatives across the development teams.

Desirable

• Experience with Test-Driven Development (TDD).
• Experience using Jira for work management and delivery tracking.
• Experience with SaFe-inspired increment planning.
• Ability to define API contracts using the OpenAPI specification.
• Knowledge of micro frontend architecture, module federation and best practices.
• Understanding of GitOps principles and practises.

What is it like to work at the EBRD? / About EBRD 

Our agile and innovative approach is what makes life at the EBRD a unique experience! You will be part of a pioneering and diverse international organisation, and use your talents to make a real difference to people's lives and help shape the future of the regions we invest in.  

At EBRD, our Values – Inclusiveness, Innovation, Trust, and Responsibility – are at the heart of how we work. We bring these to life through our Workplace Behaviours: listening well and speaking up, collaborating smartly, acting decisively with full commitment, and simplifying to amplify our impact. These principles shape our culture and define our success. We seek individuals who not only share these values but are also committed to embedding them in their daily work, fostering a positive and high-performing environment. 

The EBRD environment provides you with: 

• Varied, stimulating and engaging work that gives you an opportunity to interact with a wide range of experts in the financial, political, public and private sectors across the regions we invest in. 
• A working culture that embraces inclusion and celebrates diversity. Our workforce reflects a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, bringing fresh ideas, energy, and innovation and enhancing our ability to serve our clients, shareholders, and counterparties effectively.
• We offer hybrid and flexible working arrangements and believe we operate at our best when collaborating 3 days a week in person (minimum)
• An environment that places sustainability, equality and digital transformation at the heart of what we do. 
• A workplace that prioritises employee wellbeing and provides a comprehensive suite of competitive benefits. 

Diversity is one of the Bank’s core values which are at the heart of everything it does.  As such, the EBRD seeks to ensure that everyone is treated with respect and given equal opportunities and works in an inclusive environment. The EBRD encourages all qualified candidates who are nationals of the EBRD member countries to apply regardless of their racial, ethnic, religious and cultural background, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic background or disability.