{"id":763807,"url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3","title":"Principal Software Engineer - Java","company":{"id":5371,"name":"The Very Group","domain":"very.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/the-very-group","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":35,"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Liverpool, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":86000,"max_usd":173000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":54},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-11T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-11","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T05:26:58Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":54,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":54},"description":"Internal use only - Grade E\nAbout us.\nWe’re the team behind digital retailer Very.\nOur purpose, helping families get more out of life, powers everything we do.\nAnd we want our people to get more out of life too! If you’re high-performing, ambitious and make the most of every opportunity, we want to hear from you. In return, you’ll enjoy heaps of flexibility, great perks and benefits, and the freedom to be yourself, keep learning and take your career wherever you want it to go.\nIf you love making a difference, you’ll love making it sparkle for millions of Very customers.\nAbout The Teams\nWe are currently hiring for multiple roles within our FS, Retail and Logistics and Fulfilment Squads. You will get the opportunity to meet with members of each squad throughout our process and we will decide which area we think your skills would fit best.\nAbout the role.\nThis is one of the most influential engineering roles within Very.\nYou'll be the person teams turn to for technical leadership, guidance and direction. Working closely with Product Managers, Architects, Engineering Managers and fellow Engineers, you'll help shape both what we build and how we build it.\nYou'll have the opportunity to tackle challenges that don't exist in smaller organisations. From highly scalable customer-facing applications to complex integrations and cloud-native platforms, you'll be solving problems that have a tangible impact on the business and the customers we serve.\nWhat makes this role particularly exciting is the balance of ownership and influence. You'll remain close to the code while helping define engineering strategy, champion best practices and drive technical excellence across multiple teams.\nThis is a chance to leave a lasting impact on our technology, our teams and the way we engineer products at Very.\nYou'll be helping shape the future of engineering at Very by\nDesigning and building software that delivers exceptional experiences for millions of customers\nLeading technical decision-making within your squad while influencing engineering standards across the wider organisation\nSolving complex architectural challenges and balancing today's business needs with tomorrow's opportunities\nDriving improvements in software quality, reliability, scalability and security\nChampioning modern engineering practices that help teams deliver faster and with greater confidence\nWorking closely with Product, Architecture and Engineering teams to turn ambitious ideas into brilliant products\nEnhancing our CI/CD capabilities and helping to create a culture of automation and continuous improvement\nCoaching and mentoring engineers, supporting their development and helping them achieve their potential\nIdentifying technical risks early and guiding teams towards practical, sustainable solutions\nSharing your knowledge both internally and externally, helping strengthen our engineering community and reputation\nAbout you\nYou'll be an experienced software engineer who enjoys solving difficult problems and helping others succeed.\nYou may already be operating as a Principal Engineer, or perhaps you're a Senior Engineer who naturally provides technical leadership and is ready for a bigger challenge.\nYou'll bring deep technical expertise alongside the ability to influence, collaborate and inspire. You're passionate about engineering excellence and care just as much about the people around you as the technology itself.\nWe're particularly interested in engineers who have:\nStrong hands-on experience building modern software solutions using Java and AWS\nA track record of designing and evolving complex systems at scale\nA passion for clean code, quality engineering and continuous improvement\nExperience mentoring engineers and raising technical standards across teams\nStrong communication skills and the ability to explain complex ideas in a simple way\nA curiosity for emerging technologies and a desire to continually learn and evolve\nMost importantly, you'll enjoy being the person who makes teams stronger, products better and technology more impactful.\nSome of our benefits\nFlexible, hybrid working model \nInclusive culture and environment\n£1,000 flexible benefits allowance to suit your needs \n30 days holiday + bank holidays \nLinkedIn learning access \nUp to 25% discount on Very.co.uk \nMatched pension up to 6% \nMore benefits can be found on our career site \nHow to apply\nPlease note that the talent acquisition team are managing this vacancy directly, and if successful in securing this role, you will be required to undertake a credit, CIFAS, Right to Work checks and if a specific requirement of your role a DBS (criminal records) check. Should your application progress we require you to let the team know if there is anything you need to disclose in relation to any of these checks prior to them being undertaken, including any unspent criminal convictions.\nWhat happens next?\nOur Talent Acquisition team will be in touch if you’re successful so keep an eye on your emails! We’ll arrange a short call to learn more about you, as well as answer any questions you have.\nFor this role after meeting our Talent Acquisition Team you can expect a 2 stage process.\nFirst Stage - A Take Home Technical Interview.\nSecond Stage - Behavioural and Technical Interview, this interview focuses on your technical and softer skills, how you like to work as part of a Software Engineering Team (60 minutes onsite).\nIf you'd like to know more about our interviews, you can find out here.\nDiversity, inclusion and equal opportunities\nWe’re building a culture of everyday inclusion, and welcome applications from anyone who believes they can do the job. We don’t discriminate based on age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation.\nWe want our recruitment process to be accessible to everyone. If you need reasonable adjustments to apply, interview, or perform a role, let us know via . We’ll be happy to support you.\nWe’re proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer and have nine brilliant colleague networks - including DAWN (Disability Awareness at Very) and Think (Neurodiversity at Very) - that are helping us make Very an even more inclusive place to work.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6304,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["E-commerce Platforms"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T19:19:47Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":33,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.726,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":53,"expected_fill_days":35,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/the-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:31Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":10269,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":5371},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=5371"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/the-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fthe-very-group-principal-software-engineer-java-3"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":763807}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"very.co.uk","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":763807},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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