Principal Software Engineer – Distributed Systems

About the role

Standard Chartered Bank is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to design, build and support highly scalable, resilient and secure distributed services for critical transaction processing. The role can be based in Singapore or China and will focus on solving complex engineering challenges across orchestration, data consistency, failure recovery and performance at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Shape engineering direction for high‑availability distributed systems and contribute to long‑term scalability and resilience strategies.
• Design and implement fault‑tolerant backend services for high‑volume transaction processing.
• Develop integration patterns across APIs, message queues, streaming platforms and internal services.
• Build validation, idempotency and recovery mechanisms to ensure safe, consistent processing.
• Promote engineering excellence, code quality, automation and secure development practices.
• Document solutions, participate in technical reviews and drive continuous improvement.

Required profile

• Proven experience designing and delivering distributed systems in a banking or high‑throughput environment.
• Strong problem‑solving and critical‑thinking abilities to address ambiguous technical challenges.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a high‑performance team and influence engineering direction.

Required skills

• Go or Java programming.
• Experience with durable execution platforms such as Temporal or DBOS (preferred).
• Knowledge of APIs, message queues and streaming platforms.
• Understanding of secure engineering practices and operational discipline.

What we offer

• Opportunity to work on mission‑critical banking systems at a global financial institution.
• Competitive salary range and exposure to cutting‑edge distributed technologies.