You’ve built solid systems. You’ve mentored teams. Now you’re ready to take ownership—architecting solutions that scale across Europe while guiding other engineers to grow.
We’re looking for a Principal Engineer living in the Netherlands who’s ready to lead from within: technically sharp, culturally aware, and business-savvy. You’ll bridge vision and execution in a role where your leadership directly accelerates international growth.
What you’Il do
Architect & Guide
Design modular, scalable systems (Java/Spring Boot & Angular) built to grow
Shape long-term architecture with an eye for quality and team autonomy
Align cross-domain tech initiatives with business strategy
Mentor & Empower
Be the go-to for engineering questions, decisions, and growth
Coach senior and medior engineers in best practices and architectural thinking
Stimulate ownership and learning in every sprint
Set Standards
Define and document best practices for backend, frontend, and DevOps
Elevate CI/CD, test automation, observability, and release pipelines
Champion clean code, system resilience, and performance tuning
Collaborate & Align
Work closely with Dutch and international colleagues—Product Owners, Platform Leads, Engineering Managers
Ensure shared vision across all engineering efforts
Cloud & Infrastructure
Lead AWS optimization (EC2, Lambda, RDS, S3, CloudWatch)
Promote Infrastructure as Code (CDK/Terraform), security, and automation
Drive Innovation
Introduce practical tools like domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, and micro-frontends where they fit
Continuously improve what already works—and know what to leave alone
Here’s what we offer you
8,33% holiday allowance
27 vacation days, with the option to purchase additional days
A fully premium-free pension with BeFrank
Excellent bonus schemes
A net internet allowance of €60,- per month
What we expect from you
8+ years of experience in software engineering (min. 2 years in Principal/Staff/Tech Lead role)
Deep Java expertise with Spring Boot in distributed systems
Real-world AWS experience, especially with cloud-native development
Infrastructure as code (CDK/Terraform), CI/CD pipelines, test automation
You live and work in the Netherlands
Fluent in English (Dutch is a bonus, not a must)
Strategic and practical: you balance delivery with long-term quality
Trusted by peers and stakeholders—you’re a listener, mentor, and builder
Resilient, proactive, and ready for growth
Bonus if you have
Led modernization efforts (replatforming, DDD, legacy refactoring)
Experience with micro-frontends or event-driven systems
JVM or Angular performance optimization at scale
Experience navigating international rollouts from the Netherlands
Any questions?
Feel free to ask, I’m happy to help!
+31 (0)6 3927 2665
Sander van der Breggen
Recruiter
Application Process
Submit your application
We’ll reach out to you
within 48 hours
First interview
Assessment
Second interview
Job offer
Welcome to HeadFirst Group!
Jouw voordelen bij HeadFirst Group
27 vakantiedagen
Én de mogelijkheid tot bij- of verkopen van dagen. Wij werken hard, maar vergeten niet te ontspannen.
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