Principal Engineer Compute, Connect & Governance

Wise is one the fastest growing companies in Europe and we're on a mission: to make money without borders the new normal. We've got 13 million customers across the globe and we're growing. Fast.

Current banking systems don't let us send, spend or receive money across borders easily. Or quickly. Or cheaply.

• So, we're building a new one.
• We are looking for a new principal engineer to join our team!
• Principal Engineers are the most senior engineers in our team. They take on and implement complex technology and product projects, demonstrating technical expertise across our stack.
• They have extensive industry experience and are often recognized as being industry experts in their chosen fields.
• They coach, mentor and support other senior engineers on design and implementation. They are on the forefront of major architecture and product initiatives.
• Our Principal engineers help teams across engineering to make sound technical decisions and to ensure best practices are followed throughout the process..

About your new team!

The Compute, Connect and Governance Squad provide the core hosting platform for Wise's many microservices and shared application stacks, while abstracting the complexity of maintaining or integrating into these technologies.

We also own the underlying infrastructure (Kubernetes clusters on AWS), ingress, egress and mesh services. As well as providing the right level of controls and access so that both platform and product teams can focus on scaling and improving our customer experience and journey.

Wise operates at massive scale in a highly regulated environment so all of this is done with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, security and compliance.

About You!

We understand everyone's journey is different, so you do not need to have all of these skills and experience, but you will need a few of them.

• 10+ years of experience, at least 4 in a related senior engineering role
• Experience and a deep understanding of microservice architecture, protocols, tools, performance, horizontal scalability
• Experience of the software development lifecycle across both product and backend engineering teams.
• Proficient in one or more Wise core languages (in order of preference):
• Java,
• Golang
• Python
• Expert in Containers and Kubernetes platform orchestration and development ecosystem including aspects such as:
• Service Mesh Infrastructure
• L7 Proxies
• Operators
• Experienced in public cloud architecture and design at scale.
• AWS - Preferred
• Expert in low level development and debugging of memory and performance issues, ideally in a Linux environment.
• Expertise in continuous integration and continuous delivery
• Strong knowledge of security best practises in cloud-based environments
• Experience working in highly regulated environments, preferably in Financial Services and a proven track record of translating regulatory requirements into technology deliverables.
• Background in product development is ideal.

How you will be supporting the team!

• Working with Principal Engineers, other Staff Engineers and Tech Leads to promote best practices and strong foundational architecture.
• Working with product management, senior management, and other stakeholders to set vision and define technical roadmaps
• Guiding conversations to remove blockers and encourage collaboration across teams.
• Providing a point of escalation for teams within the squad facing complex technical challenges
• Collaborating and making proposals across teams on their engineering work, and helping team members make informed decisions in alignment with the sub-team strategic plans
• Evangelise successful adoption and use of tooling and technologies
• Teach, mentor, grow, and advise other domain experts, individual contributors, and teams in Wise
• Embody Wise's culture and demonstrate humility in the way you interact with your colleagues
• Exemplify Wise values through code, reviews, communications, and processes

What does success look like?

• You'll be building and maintaining the infrastructure and foundation of the technical parts of Wise
• You'll ensure we have our services up and running so product teams can work efficiently
• You'll understand our customers and the impact our product makes in their lives
• You'll have onboarded and found your place through understanding your team and tribe vision and how you can contribute
• You'll also have found your place in our mission and you understand our values and how they can guide you doing your best work
• You help Wise achieve its mission by building on one of the key foundation technology layers at the heart of our platform.

What you get back:

• RSU's in a growing company
• An annual self-development budget
• Pet friendly offices
• Lots of fun group activities like yoga, running and boardgame nights
• Relocation and visa expenses covered
• A paid 6-week sabbatical leave after four years
• Find out more about our benefits in our London office

Interested? Find out more:

• How we work - a practical guide
• Wise Vlogs: Omar, Engineering Lead
• Engineering team blog
• Scaling our Infrastructure; how we make it work
• We're people without borders - without judgement or prejudice, too. We want to work with the best people, no matter their background. So if you're passionate about learning new things and keen to join our mission, you'll fit right in.
• Also, qualifications aren't that important to us. If you've got great experience, and you're great at articulating your thinking, we'd like to hear from you.
• And because we believe that diverse teams build better products, we'd especially love to hear from you if you're from an under-represented demographic.