Position: Principal GO Developer
Location: Denver, CO
Duration: 1 Year
Job Description:
- We are looking for more experienced (above 12 years) and played lead / architect roles for this position.
- We are seeking a Senior Engineer to own and evolve a production-critical payment platform responsible for high-volume financial transactions.
- This role is focused on stability, correctness, and long-term system stewardship, not greenfield development.
- In addition to strong programming expertise, this role requires experience embedding AI/ML capabilities into enterprise systems and SDLC processes, supporting AI-driven transformation initiatives such as intelligent automation, anomaly detection, and data-driven decisioning within transactional platforms.
- The ideal candidate has deep experience operating Tier 1 systems where reliability, data integrity, and performance are non-negotiable.
- They demonstrate strong engineering judgment, maintain a disciplined and low-complexity approach to design, and are capable of driving meaningful improvements independently within an existing distributed system.
- This role requires a hands-on engineer who can lead through execution, make sound technical decisions under real-world constraints, and contribute to the long-term evolution of a high-value platform, including selective adoption of AI/ML capabilities where they improve system outcomes without compromising stability.
Role Context
The system is a Go-based, microservice-oriented payment platform running in a
containerized environment with a MySQL backend.
It supports high-throughput transaction processing and significant annual revenue,
making reliability and correctness critical.
The platform originated externally and requires thoughtful, incremental
improvement rather than wholesale redesign.
The work involves ongoing evolution of the system, including improving data
fidelity, observability, performance, and flexibility while maintaining strict
operational stability.
The platform is progressively incorporating AI/ML-driven capabilities, requiring
careful integration into existing system boundaries and SDLC practices.
Key Responsibilities
Own and evolve existing Go-based services, making measured, low-risk changes
that improve system capability, reliability, and clarity.
Design and implement backend functionality for payment processing, transaction
routing, reconciliation, and financial data movement with a strong focus on
correctness and auditability.
Integrate AI/ML components into the existing architecture (e.g., model inference
services, decision engines, data pipelines) while ensuring system stability and
auditability.
Apply AI/ML across the SDLC, including:
o Intelligent test generation and validation
o Production anomaly detection and incident prediction
o Log and metric analysis using ML techniques
o Code quality and defect prediction tools
Collaborate with data science teams to operationalize ML models (deployment,
monitoring, versioning, rollback strategies) within a production-grade environment.
Proactively identify system limitations, operational risks, and data gaps, and drive
pragmatic solutions with minimal oversight.
Evaluate the impact and risk of changes in a high-throughput transactional
environment, ensuring safe and controlled rollouts.
Improve system observability, data capture, and operational insight to support
both engineering and business needs, including ML-driven observability
enhancements.
Model and optimize transactional data using relational databases, with careful
attention to consistency, performance, and maintainability.
Build and maintain APIs and service interfaces with clear contracts and long-term
usability in mind.
Contribute to AI transformation initiatives, identifying where AI/ML can
meaningfully enhance system reliability, fraud detection, operational efficiency, or
decision-making.
Collaborate with product, architecture, and non-technical stakeholders to ensure
solutions meet business, operational, regulatory, and ethical AI governance
requirements.
Provide technical leadership by guiding design decisions, reviewing code, and
mentoring engineers while maintaining a focus on simplicity and stability.
Own services through their full lifecycle, including design, deployment, monitoring,
incident response, and continuous improvement, including ML lifecycle management
(MLOps).
Mandatory Skills: GO/Golang, MySQL/Oracle/PostgreSQL, AL/ML, AWS
Optional Skills: Java, Python, Kubernetes, Docker
Required Qualifications
12 plus years of experience in software engineering, demonstrated experience
building and operating production-critical backend systems with meaningful business
or revenue impact.
Strong hands-on experience with Go/Golang or Java based technologies in real-
world production environments.
Experience integrating AI/ML solutions into enterprise systems, including
deploying, consuming, or operationalizing ML models.
Understanding of AI/ML concepts such as supervised/unsupervised learning, model
evaluation, inference pipelines, and data quality considerations.
Experience applying AI/ML within SDLC processes (e.g., testing, monitoring,
observability, or developer productivity tooling).
Deep experience with relational databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle),
including schema design, transactional modeling, and performance optimization.
Strong understanding of transactional systems, including data integrity,
idempotency, reconciliation, auditability, and failure handling.
Proven ability to make pragmatic, low-complexity design decisions in distributed
systems.
Experience working within and improving existing systems with real-world
constraints, rather than primarily greenfield environments.
Ability to independently identify problems, define solutions, and drive execution to
completion.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with both
technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with payment systems, financial transaction platforms, or other high-
integrity data domains.
Experience supporting systems with high transaction volume, low latency
requirements, or strict uptime expectations.
Familiarity with MLOps practices, including model deployment, monitoring, drift
detection, and lifecycle management.
Experience with real-time or near real-time ML inference systems in production
environments.
Familiarity with secure data handling, privacy considerations, and ethical AI
practices in regulated environments.
Experience with containerized or cloud-based deployment environments (e.g.,
Kubernetes, Docker, or similar platforms).
Exposure to event-driven or asynchronous processing patterns.
Ideal Candidate Profile
Operates as a true owner, not a task executor; identifies issues and drives solutions
independently.
Demonstrates restraint and discipline in system design, avoiding unnecessary
abstraction and complexity.
Comfortable working in high-stakes environments where stability and correctness
take precedence over novelty.
Able to apply AI/ML pragmatically, focusing on measurable improvements rather
than experimentation for its own sake.
Calm, methodical, and reliable under production pressure.
Able to collaborate effectively with senior peers while mentoring and guiding
junior engineers.
Focused on building systems that are understandable, maintainable, resilient, and
progressively intelligent over time.
Expectations from this role:
Performs tests in strict compliance with detailed instructions for the following:
1. Ensure that new or revised components or systems perform to expectation.
2. Ensure meeting of standards; including usability, performance, reliability or
compatibility.
3. Document Test results and report defects
Typical performance measures:
1. Timely completion of all tasks
2. # of test cases/script executed in comparison to the benchmarks
3. # of valid defects
Performance Areas:
Test Design, Development, Execution:
Execute test cases / scripts
Identify, log and track defects
Retest
Log in productivity data
Requirements Management:
Participate, Seek Clarification, Understand, Review
Domain relevance:
Test features and components with good understanding of the business problem
being addressed for the client
Manage knowledge:
Consume, Contribute
Skill Examples:
1. Ability to review user story / requirements to identify ambiguities
2. Ability to design test cases / scripts as per user story / requirements
3. Ability to apply techniques to design efficient test cases / script
4. Ability to set up test data and execute tests
5. Ability to identify anomalies and detail them
Knowledge Examples:
1. Knowledge of Testing Methodologies
2. Knowledge of Tools
3. Knowledge of Types of testing
4. Knowledge of Testing Processes
5. Knowledge of Testing Standards