About Us: The Future is AI-Native
At Create Future, we believe the next frontier of innovation lies in seamlessly integrating artificial intelligence into the very fabric of our products and processes. We are on an ambitious mission to become a truly AI-native business, revolutionising how software is conceived, built, and delivered. This isn't just about using new tools; it's about fundamentally transforming our culture and up-skilling our teams. We're looking for a pioneering engineer to help us build this future.
The Role: Build the Future of AI-Powered Software
As a Principal Engineer, you will be a key technical leader and practitioner in our evolution. You are an AI-native engineer who is fluent in agentic coding tools and convinced that AI will redefine the craft of software engineering. Your core mission is to champion and implement AI-assisted development practices within our teams, acting as a hands-on mentor and a catalyst for innovation through your technical expertise and enthusiasm.
You will be at the forefront of adopting and mastering cutting-edge AI tools and platforms, ensuring our engineers are not just using them, but are excelling with them. This role requires a blend of hands-on coding excellence, technical leadership, and a product-focused mindset to drive meaningful improvements in how we build.
Key Responsibilities:
Pioneer Advanced Engineering Practices: As a senior technical contributor, you will actively shape and refine our engineering discipline for the AI age. You will challenge current practices, introducing new workflows and development patterns that are faster, more creative, and uniquely suited to AI-powered development.
Teach, Coach & Mentor: Serve as a go-to expert on AI development tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Codex, Cline, Kiro or Cursor. You will lead by example through pairing sessions, insightful code reviews, and hands-on guidance, helping to elevate the skills of the entire engineering team.
Lead by Example: Remain at the cutting edge by being an active, hands-on developer. You will embed within teams to model best practices, solve complex technical problems using AI tools, and demonstrate the art of the possible, inspiring others through your exceptional engineering skill.
Champion AI-Powered Development: Drive the adoption of AI-first methodologies with a pragmatic and persistent approach. You will work with your peers, tech leads, and product managers to foster a culture of curiosity and innovation.
Translate Technical Gains to Product Value: Develop a keen understanding of how new AI-powered methodologies impact our products. You will be responsible for articulating the value of these new approaches—from productivity gains to enhanced capabilities—to product and engineering stakeholders.
Who We're Looking For:
A Technical Leader and Mentor: You are a hands-on coder who also excels at guiding and influencing your peers. You know when to build, when to teach, and how to elevate the engineers around you.
Technically excellent: You are an engineer who excels at building high-quality software, able to build production software in .NET, Java, Python or another common backend programming language
An AI Tool Expert: You have deep, practical experience with multiple generative AI and AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Co-pilot, Claude, Cursor, etc.). You don't just know the features; you know how to wield them for maximum impact in a professional development environment.
A Workflow Innovator: You don't just adopt new tools; you rethink the entire development lifecycle. You are comfortable challenging established norms to introduce new ways of working that unlock greater potential.
A Passionate Technologist: You are fully bought into the paradigm shift that AI represents for software delivery. Your enthusiasm is infectious, and you are relentless in your pursuit of technical excellence.
An Effective Communicator: You possess strong communication skills, capable of discussing complex technical concepts with engineers, collaborating effectively with product managers, and demonstrating the value of your work.
Why Join Create Future?
Lead the Change: This isn't a role where you'll just follow trends; you'll be setting the standard for our AI-native future.
High-Impact Work: Your efforts will directly accelerate our development lifecycle, enhance our products, and shape the skills of our entire engineering team.
Autonomy and Support: We will provide you with the autonomy to innovate, backed by a leadership team that is fully invested in the AI mission.
Shape the Future: Be at the absolute forefront of the most significant shift in software development in a generation.
If you are a pragmatic, curious, and skilled engineer ready to build the future of software development, we want to hear from you.
We trust people to do their best work. That means flexibility over rigid rules, impact over activity, and real investment in your growth both professionally and personally. You’ll be part of a supportive, and friendly culture, surrounded by smart, curious people who care deeply about what they do.
We offer flexible working, including hybrid and remote options. Our office hubs are located in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, London and Bulgaria, with occasional travel to client sites or CreateFuture offices when needed.
We trust you to manage your time balancing collaboration with client time and focused work. What matters is the impact you have, not how busy you look.
Our hiring processWe try to keep our hiring process clear, fair and respectful of your time. We aim to get back to everyone who applies and we will be upfront about where you are in the process.
It usually looks like this:
- Call with our Talent Acquisition Team
- Role specific capability interview
Depending on the role, we might also ask you to do a short presentation, a practical or technical task or have a values focused conversation. We will explain what is involved before anything happens.
Inclusion at CreateFutureWe believe diverse teams build better workplaces and better products. We want CreateFuture to be a place where people feel able to be themselves and do their best work.
If you need any adjustments or support during the application process, just. We will do what we can to help.
We look forward to your application!
Skills Required
- Production software development experience using .NET, Java, Python, or another common backend programming language
- Deep practical experience using multiple generative AI and AI-assisted development tools
- Hands-on software engineering expertise and ability to solve complex technical problems
- Technical leadership, peer guidance, coaching, and mentoring experience
- Strong communication skills for explaining technical concepts and collaborating with engineers and product managers
- Experience innovating development workflows and adopting AI-first engineering methodologies
What We Do
CreateFuture was built to take action. With our 500-strong team of software engineering, strategy and design experts, across Edinburgh, Leeds, London and Manchester, we’re determined to get you exactly what you need. As with our past clients, we get to the root of your challenge and do everything it takes to create positive solutions by building digital products and services that solve problems. With years of experience helping catalyse major organisations into action, our rapid growth has been driven by people who seek to understand before they solve. We care about our craft. We challenge each other by asking, “Why not?”. And we’re proud to collaborate and partner with the likes of PayPal, adidas, FanDuel, Money Saving Expert, Penguin Random House, Yorkshire Building Society and more. With CreateFuture, our people are at the forefront of every outcome and we know that a strong team dynamic is critical to success, so we’ll be there for you every step of the way. We draw on their unique skills for problem-solving – and helping your teams unleash their potential too. Put simply, we want to be an organisation that people want to work for and want to work with. You don’t need to have all the answers. Share your problem and we’ll go from there. Let’s create something incredible, together, today.
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