Principal Software Engineer

At the heart of Paxton, we are innovators, we look for ways of harnessing new technology to provide better solutions for our customers. We're a global brand with nearly 40 years of experience, our team of over 400 employees is spread around the world.

We pride ourselves on creating a vibrant environment, with a focus on excellent company culture. Our teams make Paxton a great place to work with brilliant benefits that come with any role at Paxton, with an emphasis on career progression, training and development, and recognition of achievement for every employee.

So, what are the benefits?

• We run a great social calendar with wine tasting, cooking classes, onsite yoga, staff parties and more. It's rare you won't see something going on!
• Tech, bike, and travel or season ticket loans.
• Private medical insurance (Opt in) and healthcare cash-back plan.
• Discounted fitness memberships up to 75% off in your area.
• Hybrid working - Tuesdays and Thursdays
• 25-days holiday plus bank holidays, and you can buy & sell up to 5 days a year.
• Recognised as one of the Best Companies to Work for in the UK, by Best Companies™.

About the role

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our team based in our Brighton office, where you will lead the way in building and evolving the back-end core of our access control systems, using C# .NET and modern development practices. While we do build apps and cloud services, this role is about the power behind them - the systems, APIs, and infrastructure that drive performance, reliability, and scalability. 

This is a senior hands-on role where you'll take ownership of architecture and design, solve complex technical challenges, and play a key part in shaping our next-generation product platforms. You'll be working closely with internal development teams, senior management team and external partners, providing technical leadership and mentoring to help others grow.

• Lead and drive the design of robust, scalable, and secure back-end systems using C# .NET
• Collaborate with multiple teams to deliver integrated solutions across products
• Contribute and lead architectural decisions and long-term technical strategy
• Champion test-driven development, and ensure high-quality, maintainable code
• Identify technical risks early and provide clear, pragmatic solutions
• Mentor developers and support their professional growth
• Review and provide feedback on technical designs, requirements, and documentation
• Promote best practices across engineering, with a strong focus on code quality and performance
• Help shape and support the future evolution of our software platform

What are we looking for?

• Proven experience in back-end software development with C# and .NET (Core and above)
• Strong experience designing and building APIs, services, and system components
• Solid knowledge of database design principles
• Comfortable with system architecture, threading, memory management, and performance tuning
• A collaborative mindset and a passion for mentoring and leading by example
• Great communication skills - you'll be working across teams and with stakeholders
• Experience with cloud (especially Azure) is helpful, but not essential

The right attitude is more important to us than your skills or experience. If you're excited about a role but your existing experience doesn't match up with every element of the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway.

We want to collaborate with you and hear your ideas, most of all, we want people to enjoy the journey with us. Take a look at what our team thinks of working here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WH7Pi3--zc