Principal Engineer

Experience - 12+ years 

• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for large-scale software systems
• Architect scalable, high-performance solutions aligned with long-term platform and business goals.
• Solve complex technical challenges while ensuring reliability, security, and maintainability.
• Establish and drive adoption of engineering standards, particularly in object-oriented design, testing, error handling, and query architecture.
• Lead technical direction across teams through influence, shaping architectural decisions and engineering priorities.
• Act as a force multiplier by coding at a high level while elevating team capability, quality, and output.
• Mentor engineers at all levels and strengthen technical judgment across the organization.
• Own 1–3 year technical direction, balancing platform health, scalability, and business value.
• Evaluate build-versus-buy decisions, upgrades, and refactoring against technical and organizational constraints.
• Identify and address platform-wide risks, including performance, security, and long-term maintainability.
• Exercise strong technical judgment, including challenging decisions that may compromise long-term platform health.
• Lead technical risk assessment for critical initiatives, providing clear estimates and trade offs that support effective planning.
• Identify security gaps across application and infrastructure layers and prioritize remediation based on business and technical risk.
• All other duties as assigned.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including deep technical leadership in complex product environments.
• Proven experience architecting and scaling large distributed software systems in production environments.
• Deep mastery of the primary framework (Rails), including internals, request lifecycle, Active Record, middleware behavior, and where abstractions break at scale.
• Strong full-stack proficiency across Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, and TypeScript.
• Deep knowledge of cloud platforms, microservices architecture, and containerized environments, including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Strong understanding of performance optimization, security, reliability, and maintainability in large-scale systems.
• Exceptional problem-solving skills, with a track record of resolving complex technical challenges.
• Demonstrated problem-solving capability in high-pressure situations, with the ability to investigate complex issues, adapt as priorities evolve, and drive effective technical resolution.
• Strong attention to detail and organizational judgment, enabling effective prioritization across competing technical initiatives and dependencies.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction across teams.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear decisions and recommendations.
• Product-minded and continuously curious, with a positive approach to learning, evolving technologies, and improving engineering outcomes.