Principal Engineer

As  Principal Software Engineer you will manage and grow a small software engineering team responsible for running and evolving our core analytics platform. This platform supports a broad range of activities throughout the lifecycle of a nature-based solutions project. Zulu Ecosystems delivers:  

• Land use prospecting and site selection
• Commercial business case analysis and modelling
• Operational project design and delivery
• Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of restoration outcomes

 
You will provide architectural vision and technical leadership for scalable data infrastructure handling geospatial datasets, physics-based dynamic modelling, and statistical/machine learning workflows. Collaborating closely with commercial teams, data scientists, ecologists, and product teams, you will ensure our platform is robust, performant, and mission aligned. 

Your Responsibilities 
Lead the design, development, and operation of a scalable analytics platform handling geospatial and environmental analytics that support decisions: 
 

• Provide leadership and mentorship to a small engineering team, fostering growth and high-quality execution.
• Architect and optimise systems supporting complex statistical, physics-based and machine learning models in production.
• Collaborate closely with data scientists, scientific domain experts, and product teams to translate business needs into deployable, maintainable software solutions.
• Drive cross-team alignment on technologystrategy, architecture, and tooling.
• Oversee code quality, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoringplatform reliability and scalability.
• Participate in hiring, onboarding, and building a strong engineering culture.

 
This is an individual contributor role – as well as leadership you will write code, contributing to the design, build and operation of the platform along with the rest of the team.

• Passion for solving ecological challenges.
• Delivering products in an agile team - covering multiple different team structures and product maturity stages
• Experience leading or managing technical teams.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python and SQL
• Proven track record designing, building and operating analytical platforms.
• Deep knowledge of geospatial tools, formats and platforms.
• Experience working with domain experts and supporting complex modelling, statistical or machine learning pipelines in production.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP), containerisation, infrastructure as code (e.g. Terraform) and CI tools (e.g. GitHub Actions)
• Excellent communication skills, able to collaborate and influence across technical and non-technical teams.

If you are passionate about leading engineering teams to build scalable data platforms that make a real environmental impact across diverse activities, we want to hear from you!  Apply now and join Zulu Ecosystems on our mission to regenerate the planet. 
Hybrid working environment in London.

• Competitive salary benchmarked on level of experience plusequity.
• Mission-driven work restoring nature at scale.
• 25 days of annual leave + bank holidays, private healthcare, andworkplace pension.
• £1,000 annual learning & development budget.
• Collaborative team culture blending tech, science, and impact.
• New Macbook Pro or choice of equipment