Principal Apps Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 18, 2026. First seen by Alion on Oct 5, 2026.
Job Description
The Sun is the biggest news brand in the UK, publishing hundreds of stories a day and reaching over 170m unique users digitally every month. Its exclusives set the news agenda and its campaigns have changed the lives of many. Delivering news, entertainment, and sports coverage to millions of readers every day. With a rich history spanning decades, we are dedicated to providing accurate, insightful, and engaging content across print and digital platforms.
Your role: As a Principal Apps Engineer you will work alongside our engineers, product owners and stakeholders to lead and steer the technical conversations and ensure that what we build is best in class and fit for purpose. Working with the Head of Engineering, you’ll be responsible for the technical strategy and the tactical implementation, as well as helping with hiring, growing and running our team.
Day to day you will:
Lead technical direction and discussions within the team
Ensure best practice and good code quality is maintained
Support existing, and developing new, features to support business needs across all Sun
Work with stakeholders to understand their requirements and help to define ticket requirements
Assist with the release process to deploy new features/fixes to production
What we’re looking for from you:
Demonstrate expertise in native mobile development for iOS and/or Android, showing proficiency in both modern and legacy languages.
Apply a test-driven approach to development (TDD/BDD) to ensure the stability and reliability of our mobile applications.
Guide engineering peers by participating in thorough code reviews to maintain high standards across the codebase.
Communicate technical concepts clearly to both internal stakeholders and external communities through presentations or meetups.
Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to streamline the delivery of mobile features.
Show a proactive mindset by driving positive change and continuous improvement within a collaborative agile environment.
News UK is one of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month. Spanning print and pixel, audio and video, events and experiences, our multi-format brands are home to a plurality of opinion, representing the diverse communities we serve. Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose, we exist to promote a fair society, freedom of speech and a little bit of fun. Rethinking continually the business of storytelling, we represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter.
Life at News
Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose. We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. We inform our audiences so that they can make decisions based on trusted information.
We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter most. To ensure these stories resonate with as broad an audience as possible, it is essential that our organisation reflects the diversity of the people we reach. Whether through age, gender, ethnicity, disability, social class or sexuality, we are committed to representing the rich variety of voices that make up our society. And we champion a culture where everyone has the opportunity to contribute and thrive as we continue to innovate and drive long term sustainable growth. This is done through our Diversity Strategy.
At News UK, we take pride in our exceptional employee-led networks that bring together individuals with shared interests and create a vibrant sense of community. We believe our networks play a vital role in fostering a collaborative and supportive work culture at News UK. Groups that we support include the African & Caribbean Network, Parents and Carers, and LGBTQ+ group News Is Out, and Next Gen.
Benefits
Some of our benefits include:
Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks
Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access
Private medical insuranceincluding coverage for pre-existing conditions
Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual yoga classes
‘Bikes for Work’and ‘Electric Car’ scheme
Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books
Access to exclusive events and competitions with exciting brands such as talkSPORT, Virgin Radio UK & The Times. Weekly virtual panel chats with top journalists and celebrities
Access to wellbeing benefitssuch as EAP, physio/massage and counselling
A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%
25 days holiday plus bank holidays, as well as an extra anniversary day off
Up to 3 paid volunteering days per year to support causes you care about
We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. If you require reasonable adjustments due to a disability or health condition at any stage of your application or interview, please let us know. You can contact us at [email protected] to discuss how we can support you to perform at your best.