Principle SRE

London, United Kingdom

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Key information

Date live: 02/12/2025

Business Area: Global Payment Services

Area of Expertise: Technology

Contract: Permanent

Reference Code: JR-0000080475

It’s happening at Barclays.

Be a part of a place where challenges are measured in billions, qubits and nanoseconds. Build your career in an environment where we’re advancing machine learning, leveraging blockchains, and harnessing FinTech. Working in Barclays technology, you’ll reimagine possibilities: learning and innovating to solve the challenges ahead, delivering for millions of customers.
We are shaping the future of financial technology.
Why not join us and make it happen here?

Where will you be located?

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Role Overview:

The Principal Site Reliability Engineer will be a senior technical expert responsible for driving end-to-end resilience, reliability, and scalability across our mission-critical payments platform. This role focuses on front-to-back payment flows, ensuring systems are designed for fault tolerance, observability, and operational excellence.

You will perform deep technical reviews, troubleshoot complex issues, and define patterns for resiliency by design. As a hands-on engineer, you will collaborate with development and production support teams, advocate chaos engineering, and build a culture of designing for failure. This position requires strong technical breadth across infrastructure, applications, networks, databases, and integrations, combined with expertise in modern reliability engineering practices.

Key Responsibilities:

Reliability Engineering Leadership:
- Drive strategies to improve reliability, maintainability, and scalability across payment flows and platform components.
Architecture & Design Reviews:
- Conduct deep technical assessments of system architectures, identifying risks and recommending improvements for fault tolerance and disaster recovery.
Incident Management & Root Cause Analysis:
- Act as a senior escalation point for production incidents, lead RCA, and implement permanent fixes to prevent recurrence.
Resiliency by Design:
- Define and enforce reliability patterns, frameworks, and best practices; ensure adoption across engineering teams.
Chaos Engineering & Failure Testing:
- Advocate and implement chaos engineering principles to validate system resilience under real-world failure scenarios.
Observability & Monitoring:
- Design and implement full-stack observability solutions, including metrics, logging, distributed tracing, and alerting.
Automation & Tooling:
- Develop automation for failover, capacity management, and self-healing mechanisms to reduce operational risk.
Collaboration:
- Partner with development, infrastructure, and production support teams to embed reliability into the SDLC.
Continuous Improvement:
- Analyze service risk assessments and production incidents to identify systemic issues and drive long-term improvements.
Culture Building:
- Promote operational excellence and a mindset of designing for failure across all engineering teams.

Required Skills & Experience:

Technical Expertise:
- 12+ years in software engineering or infrastructure roles, with at least 5 years focused on reliability engineering or SRE.
- Proven experience building and operating fault-tolerant, highly available systems at scale.
Architecture & Design:
- Strong knowledge of distributed systems, resiliency patterns (circuit breakers, retries, failover), and disaster recovery strategies.
Technical Breadth:
- Expertise across infrastructure (compute, storage, networking), application architecture, databases, and integration patterns.
Problem-Solving:
- Ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues across distributed systems and perform deep root cause analysis.
Collaboration & Influence:
- Skilled at working with development, operations, and architecture teams to embed reliability into design and delivery.

Purpose of the role

To drive technical excellence and innovation by leading the design and implementation of robust software solutions, providing mentorship to engineering teams, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and contributing to strategic planning to ensure the delivery of high-quality solutions aligned with business objectives.

Accountabilities

Provision of guidance and expertise to engineering teams to ensure alignment with best practices and foster a culture of technical excellence.
Contribution to strategic planning by aligning technical decisions with business goals, anticipating future technology trends, and providing insights to optimize product roadmaps.
Design and implementation of complex, scalable, and maintainable software solutions, considering long-term viability and business objectives.
Mentoring and coaching to junior and mid-level engineers to foster professional growth and knowledge sharing, elevating the overall skillset and capabilities of the organization.
Collaboration with business partners, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions and ensure a cohesive approach to product development.
Innovation within the organization by identifying and incorporating new technologies, methodologies, and industry practices into the engineering process.

Director Expectations

To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Barclays welcomes applications from all candidates and is committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments (accommodations) are put in place to allow for a fair and inclusive recruitment process. For more information and how to request one, please review Adjustments to the recruitment process.

We’re a global, vital and highly respected financial organisation with an inspiring Purpose. Operating in 39 countries and employing around 100,000 people across the world, we help communities, individuals and businesses thrive. And we’ve created financial solutions and technology that the world now takes for granted. A career with us can offer incredible variety, depth and breadth of experience, and the chance to learn from some of the best minds in technology and finance.

To find out more about Barclays' strategy please click here.

We are an equal opportunity employer and opposed to discrimination on any grounds. It is the policy of Barclays to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by law.

Barclays is required by law to confirm that you have the Legal Right to Work in any role that you apply for. If you currently hold a work visa sponsored by Barclays, or you would require sponsorship from Barclays, you must declare this as part of your application. Sponsored visas are role and entity specific and any changes must be reviewed. It is important that you ensure you are working on the correct visa at all times. Failure to accurately disclose your visa status or Legal Right to Work may result in your application or any employment offer being withdrawn at any time.

Who succeeds in
Tech at Barclays?

For a career with us, you need to be prepared to take big steps forward, curious to face the challenges ahead, and driven to focus on the outcomes. We need people with the Barclays mindset to make it happen here.

What you'll get in return

Competitive holiday allowance

Life assurance

Private medical care

Pension contribution

Our technology

Supporting our 48 million customers and clients worldwide takes a lot of forward thinking. It means harnessing technology to support the economy. It means making a difference to people’s lives. And it requires the maintenance and development of a global, technological infrastructure. At Barclays, technology helps us keep transactions moving, manages data, and protects our customers. Join a world where your work creates unique moments of impact. Make it happen here.

This is Barclays London

Our global HQ is in Canary Wharf, at the heart of London’s financial district. There are over 10,000 colleagues here – a hugely diverse workforce made up of the world’s best financial and tech talent. If you love the buzz of city life, this is the place to be.

Cycle or run to work? We’ve got everything you need – from cycle hire and parking areas to new showering and changing facilities.

CoSpace is our drop-in co-working space, where networks are built, problems are solved collectively and our community is strengthened.

Our Wellness Suite includes a well-equipped gym and exercise studios, and provides personal training sessions and massage therapy.

Our new trading floors enhance communication, integrate sustainability, and support health and wellbeing through innovative design and British-sourced furniture.

This is Barclays London

Supporting active commuters

Cycle or run to work? We’ve got everything you need – from cycle hire and parking areas to new showering and changing facilities.

Time to connect

CoSpace is our drop-in co-working space, where networks are built, problems are solved collectively and our community is strengthened.

Wellbeing in focus

Our Wellness Suite includes a well-equipped gym and exercise studios, and provides personal training sessions and massage therapy.

Advanced trading floors

Our new trading floors enhance communication, integrate sustainability, and support health and wellbeing through innovative design and British-sourced furniture.

Working flexibly

We’re committed to providing a supportive and inclusive culture and environment for you to work in. This environment recognises and supports your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. If you'd like to explore flexible working arrangements, please discuss this with the hiring manager. Your request will be reviewed in-line with the requirements of the role/business needs of the team.

Hybrid working

We have a structured approach to hybrid working, where colleagues work at an onsite location on fixed, ‘anchor’, days, as set by the business area. Please discuss the working pattern requirements for the role you are applying for with the hiring manager. Please note that working arrangements may be subject to change on reasonable notice to ensure we meet the needs of our business.

Barclays is built on an international scale.

Our geographic reach, our wide variety of functions, businesses, roles and locations reflect the rich diversity of our worldwide customer base. All of which means we offer incredible variety, depth and breadth of experience. And the chance to learn from a globally diverse mix of colleagues, including some of the very best minds in banking, finance, technology and business. Throughout, we’ll encourage you to embrace mobility, exploring every part of our operations as you build your career.

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