About the Role

As a Staff Engineer, you'll be a hands-on technical leader who drives engineering excellence across multiple teams. You’ll work on complex, high-scale systems, design solutions that support millions of customer interactions, and help teams deliver high‑quality, robust and scalable products.

This is a role for someone who loves solving tough problems, mentoring engineers, influencing technical direction, and operating across a broad architecture landscape. You’ll work closely with engineering leaders, peers and stakeholders to set strategic direction, raise engineering standards, and deliver real value for our customers.

You’ll also help us leverage AI and automation to scale our capabilities and enhance both colleague and customer experiences.

What You’ll Be Doing

Shaping strategic technical direction alongside the Senior Head of Engineering. Partnering with engineering teams to evaluate decisions, influence design, and guide delivery. Acting as a coach and mentor to engineers at all levels, promoting strong engineering practices. Providing hands-on development expertise where it matters most. Working across domains in Sainsbury’s Tech to build reusable, consistent and scalable solutions. Being a trusted technical point of contact, supporting teams to achieve their best work. Helping expand our engineering career pathways and improving how we attract and develop talent.

Why Join Us?

We’re a 150‑year‑old organisation with the mindset of a modern tech company.

We run over 1,000+ microservices in AWS, Azure and GCP Stream billions of Kafka messages across our platforms Serve 10+ million Nectar users Power Argos — one of the UK’s biggest retail websites Operate large-scale supply chain systems delivering products across the UK

You’ll broaden your technical knowledge, solve complex engineering challenges and make a genuine impact at enterprise scale.

Essential Criteria

Technical Expertise

Significant hands-on engineering experience across backend and frontend technologies. Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g. Java, React, Next.js). Proven experience designing and implementing scalable, robust and secure systems. Strong knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP) and modern distributed architectures. Proven ability to guide teams in best practices, engineering principles and solution design.

Leadership & Influence

Ability to mentor, coach and technically inspire engineers at all levels. Experience influencing technical decisions and aligning teams around a clear engineering vision. Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Ways of Working

Solid understanding of Agile methodologies and the ability to support high‑performing, long‑lived teams. Ability to evaluate risk, drive continuous improvement and support teams through change.

Mindset

Customer‑obsessed, adaptable and eager to embrace new challenges. Passionate about innovation, learning, and delivering high‑quality solutions.

What’s in It for You

Flexible working tailored to your lifestyle Colleague discount across Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat Health cover and wellbeing support Competitive holiday allowance Bonus scheme and pension plan Exclusive discounts on gyms, restaurants, travel, retail and more

 If you’re ready to take the lead, push boundaries and help shape the future of technology at Sainsbury’s, we’d love to hear from you.