Principal Engineer – Engineering Excellence (3-month contract) Central Europe
Zoolatech, Oklahoma City, OK, United States
Our client is a global jewellery manufacturer transforming its engineering capabilities for one of its core teams. We are looking for a Principal Engineer who will act as a team coach, enabling best engineering practices and raising the capability of the people around them.
Your primary mission is to elevate the team's engineering maturity — embedding lasting practices in DevOps, software architecture, and modern ways of working. You will work embedded within the team: mentoring engineers day-to-day, leading a migration from Azure DevOps to GitHub, and maturing the engineering discipline and architectural thinking.
Coaching & Mentoring
Serve as the primary engineering coach for the team — working alongside engineers through pair programming, code review, and structured knowledge sessions
Identify capability gaps at both individual and team level, and design targeted approaches to close them
Champion engineering best practices: branching strategies, peer review processes, documentation, and testing disciplines
Run internal tech talks and demos to accelerate knowledge transfer across the team
DevOps
Lead the migration from Azure DevOps to GitHub — including repository restructuring, pipeline decomposition, and CI/CD implementation using GitHub Actions
Define and embed a branching strategy and release governance model appropriate for the team's context
Drive adoption of Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform
Establish automated testing and deployment pipelines as the team's standard way of working
Engineering Practices & Architecture
Coach the team on software architecture principles, design patterns, and how to make sound architectural decisions
Introduce and guide adoption of unit testing and broader test automation strategies
Support the team in adopting AI-powered development tooling and integrating it responsibly into their workflow
Stakeholder Collaboration
Work closely with the Delivery Manager to align enablement priorities with delivery commitments and team capacity
Communicate technical concepts and engineering maturity progress clearly to non-technical stakeholders
Participate in agile ceremonies and contribute to continuous improvement of team processes
Extensive software engineering experience, with a career arc that has moved towards coaching, mentoring, and team-level impact
Deep expertise in DevOps practices, culture, and tooling
Hands‑on experience with GitHub and GitHub Actions — you can lead the Azure DevOps to GitHub migration with confidence
Strong grounding in software architecture and engineering design principles
Proven ability to uplift engineering capability in a team through coaching, standards‑setting, and leading by example
Experience with Infrastructure as Code, particularly Terraform
Strong experience with CI/CD pipeline design, branching strategies, and release governance
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills — you are as comfortable with people as you are with technology
A genuine passion for developing others — this is the heart of the role
Nice‑to‑have skills
Experience with AI-powered development tooling
Familiarity with Azure Synapse Analytics and/or Databricks
Exposure to Power BI or similar BI and reporting tools
Experience with SharePoint development or modern web stack migrations
Background in full-stack web development
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Your primary mission is to elevate the team's engineering maturity — embedding lasting practices in DevOps, software architecture, and modern ways of working. You will work embedded within the team: mentoring engineers day-to-day, leading a migration from Azure DevOps to GitHub, and maturing the engineering discipline and architectural thinking.
Coaching & Mentoring
Serve as the primary engineering coach for the team — working alongside engineers through pair programming, code review, and structured knowledge sessions
Identify capability gaps at both individual and team level, and design targeted approaches to close them
Champion engineering best practices: branching strategies, peer review processes, documentation, and testing disciplines
Run internal tech talks and demos to accelerate knowledge transfer across the team
DevOps
Lead the migration from Azure DevOps to GitHub — including repository restructuring, pipeline decomposition, and CI/CD implementation using GitHub Actions
Define and embed a branching strategy and release governance model appropriate for the team's context
Drive adoption of Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform
Establish automated testing and deployment pipelines as the team's standard way of working
Engineering Practices & Architecture
Coach the team on software architecture principles, design patterns, and how to make sound architectural decisions
Introduce and guide adoption of unit testing and broader test automation strategies
Support the team in adopting AI-powered development tooling and integrating it responsibly into their workflow
Stakeholder Collaboration
Work closely with the Delivery Manager to align enablement priorities with delivery commitments and team capacity
Communicate technical concepts and engineering maturity progress clearly to non-technical stakeholders
Participate in agile ceremonies and contribute to continuous improvement of team processes
Extensive software engineering experience, with a career arc that has moved towards coaching, mentoring, and team-level impact
Deep expertise in DevOps practices, culture, and tooling
Hands‑on experience with GitHub and GitHub Actions — you can lead the Azure DevOps to GitHub migration with confidence
Strong grounding in software architecture and engineering design principles
Proven ability to uplift engineering capability in a team through coaching, standards‑setting, and leading by example
Experience with Infrastructure as Code, particularly Terraform
Strong experience with CI/CD pipeline design, branching strategies, and release governance
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills — you are as comfortable with people as you are with technology
A genuine passion for developing others — this is the heart of the role
Nice‑to‑have skills
Experience with AI-powered development tooling
Familiarity with Azure Synapse Analytics and/or Databricks
Exposure to Power BI or similar BI and reporting tools
Experience with SharePoint development or modern web stack migrations
Background in full-stack web development
#J-18808-Ljbffr