Principal Software Engineer - UCL
UK DRI
About us
The UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) is a globally leading multidisciplinary research institute of over 900 staff investigating the spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders causing dementia, driving a step change in our understanding of neurodegeneration, and accelerating the discovery, development and delivery of interventions that will help diagnose, treat, and ultimately prevent dementia.
The UK DRI Core Informatics team serves as the core for the UK DRI national informatics programme. The team enhances data access, training, partnerships, and technical capacity for researchers, fostering data sharing and boosting data science capabilities across the national institute. The team is currently based at UCL and interacts closely with the UK DRI at UCL centre staff.
About the role
We are excited to welcome an enthusiastic and experienced Software Engineer to our team. You will lead the ongoing development and maintenance of DataMap, a data-driven research software platform designed to extract knowledge from biological datasets and incorporate it into a knowledge graph. You will work across backend services, frontend applications, graph data models, databases, observability, and Kubernetes to ensure the platform remains robust, scalable, usable, and aligned with research needs.
The role requires someone who can operate as both a strong hands-on engineer and a technical lead: translating requirements from UK DRI researchers into production-quality software, improving architecture and engineering practices, and supporting long-term sustainability of the platform.
This role is eligible for hybrid working with a minimum of 20% of time on site.
About you
You should have professional software engineering experience with a focus on data science or data-intensive applications, in-depth experience designing and developing APIs and backend services, and hands-on experience in web UI development using React and TypeScript. Strong hands-on experience with Python web frameworks, proven experience working with graph databases (especially Neo4j) and a working knowledge of cloud or cloud-native systems (including AWS, Azure, or Kubernetes) is essential. A good understanding of production software systems across development, deployment, and maintenance lifecycles, and the ability to take ownership of a complex technical platform and drive work independently, are also needed for this role.
This role meets the eligibility requirements for a skilled worker certificate of sponsorship or a global talent visa under UK Visas and Immigration legislation. Therefore, UCL welcomes applications from international applicants who require a visa.