Principal Engineer

Job Description We're reimagining a legacy system from the ground up. As the Founding Product & Platform Engineer, you'll define the architecture, tooling, engineering culture and development practices behind the next generation of SGS digital products. You'll be equally comfortable designing distributed systems, building customer-facing experiences, creating cloud platforms and writing production code. This is not a traditional architect role. We are looking for a builder. You'll lead by example, making key technical decisions through hands-on delivery rather than governance. You'll help create the products that drive business impact while establishing the platform capabilities, reusable services and engineering standards that allow a small team to deliver at scale. If you're excited by greenfield environments, ambiguity, ownership and the opportunity to shape something from day one, we'd love to hear from you. The Mission Your dual mission is to: Build exceptional digital products: Lead the architecture and delivery of our most ambitious customer-facing solutions, owning everything from frontend experiences to backend services and cloud infrastructure. Build the engineering platform behind them : Create the tooling, deployment pathways and reusable building blocks that allow engineers to move quickly, safely and independently. As successful patterns emerge, you'll transform them into shared capabilities that accelerate delivery across the organisation. Key Responsibilities - Lead by Building: Act as the technical lead on our most important initiatives, architecting through code and setting the standard for engineering excellence. - Own the Full Stack: Design and develop solutions across frontend, backend, cloud infrastructure and deployment pipelines. - Build the Paved Road: Shape our platform (CI/CD, Kubernetes, IaC, observability) so other engineers ship faster and more safely. - Turn Solutions into Reusable Capabilities: Identify successful patterns and convert them into shared services, frameworks, libraries and architectural standards - Multiply Velocity: Continuously remove friction from the development lifecycle through automation, standardisation and thoughtful platform design. - Mentor and Influence: Partner with engineers, product leads and designers to raise technical standards and encourage a culture of pragmatic, high-quality delivery. Qualifications What we’re looking for: - Full Stack Mastery: Expert-level React/TypeScript on the frontend, and deep experience building distributed backends in Go, Python, or TypeScript. - Cloud & IaC: Hands-on, architectural-level experience with a major cloud (GCP, AWS) and Terraform. You don’t just use it; you architect with it. - Containers & CI/CD: Strong knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes, and modern CI/CD pipelines built from scratch (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI). - Systems Thinking: Proven ability to design scalable, resilient and observable systems. - Product Mindset: Experience working closely with Product and Design teams to deliver solutions that users genuinely value. - Observability & Quality: Practical understanding of monitoring, tracing, testing and operational excellence, including tools such as Prometheus, Grafana and Jaeger. Who You Are - You have 10+ years of experience, with strong backgrounds in both product engineering and platform/SRE work. - You are a builder first. You don’t run architecture review boards; you write the code that makes them unnecessary. - You believe the best architecture is the simplest one that works, and that great products and great platforms are built by the same kind of mindset. - You measure your success by the velocity, autonomy, and pride of the engineers around you. Additional Information Why SGS? - Opportunity to work with a global leader in inspection, verification, testing, and certification. - Collaborative and inclusive work environment. - Competitive salary and benefits package. - Opportunities for professional growth and development. Join Us: At SGS, we are dedicated to fostering an open, friendly, and supportive culture that thrives on teamwork. We value diversity and provide endless opportunities to learn, grow your expertise, and fulfill your potential. Company Description SGS is the world’s leading Testing, Inspection and Certification company. We operate a network of over 2,500 laboratories and business facilities across 115 countries , supported by a team of over 100,000 dedicated professionals . With more than 145 years of service excellence , we combine the precision and accuracy that define Swiss companies to help organizations achieve t he highest standards of quality, compliance and sustainability. Our brand promise – “when you need to be sure” – underscores our commitment to trust, integrity and reliability , enabling businesses to thrive with confidence . We proudly deliver our expert services through the SGS name and a portfolio of trusted specialized brands , including Applied Technical Services , Brightsight , Bluesign and Nutrasource .