Staff/Principal Software Engineer

As a Staff or Principal Software Engineer, you'll operate as a high-leverage individual contributor responsible for technical direction, architecture, and some of the hardest engineering problems across the organization. This is an opportunity for a senior technical leader who has built and operated large-scale distributed systems and can move between high-priority projects while influencing engineering teams, product leadership, and executive stakeholders.

What You Will Do

Own the architecture and technical direction for significant areas of the platform, lead the design and development of large-scale distributed systems, work on agent-centric AI products and AI-native product architecture, solve the most technically complex engineering problems across the organization, and make critical build-versus-buy, architecture, infrastructure, and cost tradeoffs.

Why It Might Be a Fit

Ideal for an engineer who enjoys solving complex distributed-systems problems, operating at significant scale, influencing technical direction, and staying deeply hands-on with engineering. This role offers exceptional technical ownership, visibility, and impact.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in backend or full-stack software engineering
• Experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems
• Experience designing systems that serve hundreds of thousands or millions of users
• Strong experience owning production systems end-to-end
• Experience working on complex, high-scale software platforms
• Experience solving difficult architecture, scalability, reliability, or performance problems
• Experience operating as a senior technical individual contributor
• Experience influencing engineering direction across multiple teams
• Experience partnering with senior engineering and product leadership
• Experience working in high-bar engineering organizations
• Strong track record of technical ownership and execution
• Experience making architecture and infrastructure tradeoffs independently
• Experience working on technically complex products with significant scale
• Strong ability to operate across multiple high-priority engineering initiatives
• Experience mentoring and raising the technical capabilities of other engineers
• Strong product and business awareness
• Ability to operate autonomously with limited direction
• Experience working in fast-moving, high-growth technology companies

Benefits

• Base salary: $217,000 – $410,000
• 15% target bonus
• Competitive equity package
• AI tooling budget for engineering development
• Opportunity to work on large-scale systems serving hundreds of thousands of users
• High technical ownership and autonomy
• Opportunity to influence architecture across a large engineering organization
• Direct exposure to VPs and C-suite engineering leadership
• Opportunity to work on an AI-native rebuild of a major B2B platform
• Exposure to agentic AI and modern AI-assisted development workflows
• Strong engineering culture with high technical standards
• Growth and career development support
• Hybrid work flexibility in San Francisco
• Opportunity to solve some of the company's hardest technical problems