Principal Engineer - IFC Engineering

Principal Engineer – IFC Engineering (Screening & Wholesale CDD)

Job Profile

Principal Engineer – D

Role Context and Justification

As part of the Integrated Financial Crime (IFC) initiative, this role is critical to ensuring robust, scalable, and regulator-ready engineering solutions across the Screening and Customer Due Diligence (Wholesale CDD) domains.

The Principal Engineer will hold end-to-end technical accountability for Screening platforms globally, driving architectural consistency, execution excellence, and alignment to IFC and Enterprise strategic platforms. In parallel, the role will provide people management and deep technical oversight for Wholesale CDD engineering teams based in India, ensuring delivery quality, capability uplift, and alignment with global standards.

Purpose of the Role

To drive technical excellence and innovation by leading the design and implementation of global Screening solutions, providing technical leadership and mentorship to engineering teams, fostering cross‑functional collaboration, and contributing to IFC and Enterprise strategic planning. The role ensures the delivery of high‑quality, compliant, and scalable solutions aligned with business, regulatory, and risk objectives, while maintaining strong people leadership and technical governance for Wholesale CDD engineering teams in India.

Key Accountabilities

Global Screening – Technical Design & Execution

• Lead the end-to-end technical design and execution of Screening platforms globally, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, and aligned to IFC and Enterprise architecture standards.
• Provide technical authority and design oversight for Screening capabilities, including transaction screening, sanctions screening, alerting, and case management integrations.
• Ensure Screening solutions meet regulatory, audit, and model governance expectations, embedding controls, observability, and resilience by design.
• Anticipate future Screening technology trends, regulatory changes, and data strategies, translating these into actionable engineering roadmaps.

Wholesale CDD – India Team Leadership & Technical Oversight

• Provide people management and technical oversight for Wholesale CDD engineering teams based in India, embedding a strong performance, risk-aware, and delivery-focused culture.
• Mentor, coach, and develop engineers and engineering leaders, elevating capability, consistency, and adherence to global engineering standards.
• Ensure Wholesale CDD solutions align with global IFC architecture principles, while remaining responsive to regional delivery and regulatory needs.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex technical, delivery, and risk issues within the Wholesale CDD domain.

Engineering Excellence & Governance

• Provide guidance and expertise to engineering teams to ensure alignment with best practices, fostering a culture of technical excellence across Screening and Wholesale CDD.
• Design and implement complex, maintainable, and secure software solutions, balancing long-term viability with immediate business outcomes.
• Drive innovation by identifying and incorporating new technologies, methodologies, and industry practices into Screening and Wholesale CDD engineering processes.

Stakeholder & Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Collaborate closely with business partners, product managers, architects, risk, compliance, and operations teams to translate business and regulatory requirements into cohesive technical solutions.
• Provide expert technical advice to senior stakeholders and governance forums, influencing decisions beyond immediate engineering teams.
• Act as a principal contact point for Screening engineering across IFC and the wider enterprise.

Director Expectations

• Manage a significant business function or act as a deep technical expert and organisational thought leader, leading organisation‑wide initiatives across Screening and Wholesale CDD.
• Contribute to and influence function‑wide strategy, policy, and procedures, planning and consulting on multiple complex and business‑critical initiatives.
• Lead and embed a high‑performance culture, directly managing people managers and senior engineers where applicable.
• Provide information and insight impacting long‑term profitability, organisational risk, and strategic decision‑making.
• Escalate breaches of policy or procedure appropriately and ensure regulatory compliance is embedded within all relevant engineering processes.
• Engage with the external environment, including regulators and industry bodies, to monitor and influence outcomes where appropriate.
• Demonstrate advanced analytical and interpretative thinking to solve complex and sensitive problems.

Purpose of the role

To drive technical excellence and innovation by leading the design and implementation of robust software solutions, providing mentorship to engineering teams, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and contributing to strategic planning to ensure the delivery of high-quality solutions aligned with business objectives. 

Accountabilities

• Provision of guidance and expertise to engineering teams to ensure alignment with best practices and foster a culture of technical excellence.
• Contribution to strategic planning by aligning technical decisions with business goals, anticipating future technology trends, and providing insights to optimize product roadmaps.
• Design and implementation of complex, scalable, and maintainable software solutions, considering long-term viability and business objectives.
• Mentoring and coaching to junior and mid-level engineers to foster professional growth and knowledge sharing, elevating the overall skillset and capabilities of the organization.
• Collaboration with business partners, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical solutions and ensure a cohesive approach to product development.
• Innovation within the organization by identifying and incorporating new technologies, methodologies, and industry practices into the engineering process.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.