Principal Software Engineer - Zalando Payments (all genders)

Role: Reporting directly to the Director, you will provide hands-on technical leadership for the entire department while influencing engineering strategy, technical standards, and culture at the organizational level. As Principal Software Engineer, you own and drive technical design creation for mid-to-large scale projects, factoring in scale, reliability, and architectural constraints. Responsibilities: - Own technical design and end-to-end delivery of departmental projects. - Partner with Product and Engineering Management to translate objectives into software solutions through active hands-on development. - Execute through high-impact engineering: significant code contributions, prototyping, and deep-dive troubleshooting. - Lead "agent-augmented delivery" through practical implementation of autonomous agents and AI workflows in daily delivery cycles. - Strengthen departmental expertise through coaching and paired delivery with engineers. - Drive operational excellence through proactive system and process improvements. - Drive cross-departmental initiatives to shape technical strategy, standards, and culture. Qualifications: - Comfortable with end-to-end ownership of mission-critical engineering initiatives and building deep understanding of departmental domains. - Customer-focused approach and deep understanding of engineering excellence for customer-facing products at scale. - Experience with agentic systems, AI-driven software development, or autonomous agent integration. - Proactive technical leader who brings others along and helps create clarity on risk areas. - Exceptional leadership and communication skills to inspire teams and influence technical and non-technical stakeholders. - Experience shaping company-wide strategy and leading change management. - Demonstrated use of AI tools to improve delivery, quality, or engineering excellence. - Proven experience developing solutions for regulated financial institutions or payments/fintech space. - Track record of reporting to a Head of Engineering (or higher) and initiating cross-team improvements. What We Offer: - 27 days of holiday to start (+1 day per calendar year up to 30) - 40% off fashion and beauty products sold by Zalando, 30% off Lounge, discounts from partners - Family support, including counselling for parents of caregivers - Company pension scheme and employee shares programme - Wellbeing options, including Wellhub, and mental health support - Development through training platform and bi-annual peer-to-peer reviews - 2 paid volunteering days a year - Relocation assistance (subject to agreement)