Woolworths

• Opportunity to work on the latest technology and methodology
• Join a customer-obsessed technology business at the heart of Australia’s largest retailer
• Sydney (Surry Hills/Norwest) based with a hybrid working model

We are Woolworths Group
We are Woolworths Group. 200,000+ bright minds, passionate hearts and unique perspectives connected by a shared Purpose – ‘to create better experiences together for a better tomorrow.’ It’s that Purpose that fuels our ambition to explore new ideas, make brave commitments and innovate better ways to meet the food and everyday needs of more than 24 million customers every week.

If you’re excited to turn today’s blue sky thinking into a better tomorrow for future generations, you’ll find yourself supported and enriched in a dynamic, inclusive and empowering workplace that reflects the diverse communities we serve. With a culture of genuine care, a flexible approach to work and opportunities across the group to grow your career and make a meaningful impact, the possibilities for what we can achieve together are endless.

The Opportunity

Reporting to the Head of Engineering within the Platform Engineering value stream, and in partnership with the Engineering Leads, squad Leads and squad members, this role will provide thought-leadership on engineering methods and decisions for the value stream or tribe. This role will be pivotal in solving the most complex technical challenges faced by the value stream, tribe or squad, and ensuring the technology strategy in your area is translated into tangible solutions of high quality. 

The Principal Engineer works across all squads and chapters in their value stream or tribe, with a focus on the most complex and highest impact technical changes or implementations.
In consultation with the value stream or tribe Leadership team the role has the flexibility to identify the areas that should be given focus and to dive as deep as necessary to ensure the team is set up for technical success.  This requires experience and expertise across the end to end technical stack from cloud infrastructure, networks, storage, security, backend, web and mobile engineering.
 

What you'll do

The role will be involved in coaching and guiding squads through the application lifecycle including design, development, testing and deployment.  Where appropriate it will involve building PoC capabilities to validate assumptions before more significant investments are made in technology or team time.

• The role will partner closely with the Domain Principal Architect and Head of Engineering within the domain to shape the target state view of the domain's architecture and to ensure a lens of pragmatism is applied across our solutions and delivery
• This role will also be a key partner to all Engineering Practice leads, helping shape the future engineering crafts and capabilities in alignment with our business strategy
• Helping the Heads of Engineering to validate the quality and consistency of engineering deliverables in their area
• Validating that a pragmatic path is taken towards the future state architecture for their value stream or tribe
• Ensuring that the most complex and highest impact technical decisions are made in an informed and well thought through way
• Ensuring that Chapter teams effectively engage with key engineering teams outside the Domain such as Cyber Security and Platform Engineering
   

What you'll bring

You will require excellent technical and leadership skills, and be able to translate a business strategy and understand how application, information and technology engineering functions come together. As you will engage with senior business & technology stakeholders, you will require excellent communication & influencing skills.

• Strong application and platform design skills, aligned with industry best practices.
• Extensive experience managing large-scale APIs and microservices.
• Expertise with platform infrastructure like Apigee and Service Mesh.
• Proficient in API and network security, including WAF and bot management.
• Fosters a high-performance, inclusive, and diverse team culture.
• Influences outcomes across the organisation through collaboration rather than authority.
• Addresses challenging situations directly to achieve optimal business outcomes.
• Simplifies complex issues into actionable solutions for diverse stakeholders.
• Manages dependencies and risks effectively to achieve targets.
• Experienced in solution design, cloud environments (Kubernetes), and REST APIs.
• Experience with large eCommerce sites (preferably retail).
• Understanding of Cloud Infrastructure (IAAS) technology (Terraform).
• Experience in API Management and DDD.
• Experience with abstract, logical, physical, data, and state models.
• Experience in transformation programs and network design (subnets, access control).
• Experience troubleshooting performance bottlenecks across the full stack.
• Experience with asynchronous design patterns.
• Experience with both commercial off-the-shelf and custom-built applications.
• Exposure to Google and Azure infrastructure used in modern web architecture.
• Exposure to MS SQL Server and MySQL performance tuning, and NoSQL design.
• Exposure to Event Driven Architecture.
• Experience working in Agile environments.
• Experience with Modern JavaScript (React), Node.js, and Java/ .NET web frameworks.

What you’ll Experience

• Team Discounts - Team discounts across our range of Woolworths Group brands you know and love and a robust rewards program that celebrates and incentivises purpose-driven work.
• Wellness - Access to Sonder. Sonder provides free confidential 24/7 personalised financial, medical safety, psychological or physical support for team members and their families. 

Everyone belongs at Woolworths Group
As one of the largest employers in Australia and New Zealand, we aim to create a truly inclusive workplace where everyone feels that they belong, can be their best selves, and reach their full potential.

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are key to realising our purpose of better together for a better tomorrow. We recognise the value our team’s diversity brings to our business, customers, and communities and that teams with diverse experiences and backgrounds enrich our group and are better able to innovate and solve problems.