Principal Engineer

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Alabama, +45 more states.

📋 Description

• Take ownership of the target cloud services architecture on AWS and the strategic roadmap, focusing on streamlining a sizable estate of Lambda services while minimizing reliance on legacy partner systems.

• Lead the design of services by establishing service boundaries, event and API patterns, and versioned contracts that maintain backward compatibility with previous application versions.

• Oversee database design and optimization, encompassing data models, schema standards, query and index performance, and the transition from MySQL databases to a well-regulated data architecture.

• Create architecture and design documentation, and facilitate reviews for changes that span across teams or involve payments, booking, or customer data.

• Enhance the standards for engineering practices in code review, testing strategies, observability, and performance metrics, such as P75 latency.

• Collaborate with Engineering Services on CI/CD processes, automated deployments and rollbacks, and production monitoring.

• Influence the specification-driven, AI-assisted delivery workflow in partnership with product and design teams, from PRD to user stories, coding, testing, and deployment.

• Mentor senior engineers and technical leads, assist in hiring, and evaluate build-versus-buy decisions.

• Analyze the existing architecture, data stores, technical risks, and production challenges within the first 30 days.

• Publish the target architecture, data model direction, architectural decision records, API contracts, and schema standards by day 60.

• Implement and launch the first target architecture component, execute an AI-assisted workflow on a live project, and achieve a measurable improvement in architecture in production by day 90.

⛳️ Requirements

• 12+ years of experience in building and managing production software, including 4+ years in a staff, principal, or architect-level engineering role.

• Extensive experience with AWS cloud services, serverless and event-driven architectures, and microservices transitioning to platform solutions.

• Proven track record in designing APIs, services, and data models that are crucial for multiple teams and client versions.

• Strong skills in relational database design and performance tuning (MySQL or PostgreSQL), including schema evolution in active systems.

• Proficient with modern testing methodologies, CI/CD practices, and observability tools.

• Practical experience implementing AI coding and agent tools on real codebases, demonstrating sound judgment regarding their application.

• Excellent writing skills; you can persuade through design documents rather than relying solely on authority.

• Familiarity with marketplace, booking, scheduling, or payment systems (e.g., Stripe).

• Knowledge of data architecture for analytics, including pipelines, data lakes or warehouses (e.g., Snowflake), and event tracking.

• Experience with mobile applications that need to support older versions in the field.

• Demonstrated technical leadership during organizational or platform transformations.

• Must have authorization to work in the US; no visa sponsorship available.

🏝️ Benefits

• Health, vision, dental, long-term and short-term disability, and life insurance.

• A startup-oriented company with stable funding.

• 401k matching.

• Discounts on pet care.

• Flexible time off.

• Opportunities for career growth within a network of like-minded professionals.

• Performance-based bonus of 20%.