Senior Principal Engineer - Third Party

JOB DETAILS

• JOB BAND: E
• CONTRACT TYPE:
  Permanent, Full-time
• DEPARTMENT:
  Product Group
• LOCATION:
  
  ALL Locations (domestic travel expected +some travel around Europe may be required)
• PROPOSED SALARY RANGE:
  Up to £103k depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
• We're happy to discuss flexible working. If you'd like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there's no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

As a Senior Principal Software Engineer, you will work with Product Group leadership to guide and enable strategic decisions on third‑party engineering solutions. You will support our platform‑first strategy and provide insight and guidance on buy vs build. Through your curiosity and continued professional development, you will bring thought leadership and innovation to the Third Party team and wider Enablement Organisation within Product Group.

The role requires deep technical expertise and a track record of software engineering  ideal candidate will have experience evaluating third‑party supplier solutions, working with suppliers on the delivery of solutions using FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) or COTS (Commercial Off‑The‑Shelf) products and an appreciation of the benefits and challenges of integrating third‑party solutions.

Strong verbal and written communications skill as well as stakeholder management skills are essential. This is a new role and the right candidate will have the opportunity to shape and steer.

• Shape the future of BBC digital products and platforms.
• Influence decisions that impact millions of users worldwide.
• Work on complex, high‑scale systems with cutting‑edge technologies.
• Champion innovation and platform‑first strategies in a globally respected organisation.

Third‑party sourcing and value realisation

• Support the mobilisation of new initiatives with suppliers, including the implementation of new software, tools or work packages
• Contribute to governance and continuously improve engineering guidance and guardrails for consistency across teams.
• Act as a senior engineering point of contact for a limited number of strategic third‑party contracts and work packages.
• Providing engineering support to Procurement, Finance and Legal partners within the BBC to support value realisation and ensuring our partnerships with suppliers deliver the quality, performance, and contract outcomes we expect.
• Participate in governance processes with suppliers to improve the visibility of performance, progress, risks, and value delivered.
• Contribute to the build and ongoing operation of a framework for assessing value in relation to new solution builds involving COTS or FOSS products and third‑party investments.
• Advise engineering leaders on optimal third‑party sourcing strategies (resource augmentation, work packages, software/services) using market insight and technical expertise.

• Deep understanding of the SDLC, demonstrated through hands on experience as an engineering manager, technical programme manager or in an engineering role (including data and quality assurance roles)
• Market awareness, and a proven record of using data to inform a product or service’s engineering strategy and plan
• Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across teams.
• A strategic thinker able to make decisions considering the short, medium and long term aims and outcomes
• Experience manging suppliers or relationships with partners

• Experience working with cloud native solutions
• Experience leading the technical requirements of a procurement
• Experience embedding a new off‑the‑shelf software or SaaS product deeply within an organisation
• Operational management experience, eg from on‑call roles or as part of a service management team

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Contracts of Employment policy. This…