Principal Software Engineer

JOB TITLE: Principal Software Engineer

DEPARTMENT: Transportation

REPORTS TO: Sr. Engineering Director

JOB LOCATION: Remote (U.S. based)

TRAVEL: No

SUMMARY OF POSITION:

This is a strategic individual contributor role. You will act as the technical partner to the Sr. Engineering Director, taking ownership of complex system design and architecture so the department can move faster without sacrificing quality. This is a leadership role, not a people management role - there are no direct reports. The position carries the authority of the department's technical leader; influence comes from expertise and trust rather than from reporting structure. You will drive hard design problems to conclusion with little day-to-day oversight, keeping leadership in the loop without pulling them into the details.

The role involves close partnership with engineering leadership, product, and quality to shape platform architecture and technical strategy. We value foundational patterns, judgment, and initiative over fluency in any particular language; syntax can be learned. The current stack includes C#, Go, Vue, and AWS - included as context only. We are looking for someone with deep architectural experience and the drive to own outcomes.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic Design Ownership

• Own complex system design and architectural decisions; drive them to conclusion with limited oversight while keeping leadership appropriately informed.
• Define and evolve scalable, secure, and high-performing architectures. Establish principles, patterns, and standards that teams can follow.
• Lead modernization and cloud-native adoption; ensure alignment across services, APIs, and data.

Influence-Based Technical Leadership

• Set technical direction for the department as the primary technical voice for engineers and leadership. Authority comes from expertise and credibility rather than from direct reports.
• Facilitate cross-team architectural alignment and serve as a trusted technical advisor to the Sr. Engineering Director and other leaders.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers to raise the bar on system design and technical judgment.

Hands-On Excellence

• Lead design and code reviews; develop reference implementations and reusable frameworks where they add value across the organization.
• Use AI as a force multiplier: apply it where it adds real value in the workflow and avoid treating it as a default. Thoughtful adoption is expected.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE):

• 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, with demonstrated experience at a senior architectural or principal level.
• Deep understanding of the foundational patterns that underpin good system design—distributed systems, scalability, performance, data modeling—independent of any particular language or framework. The organization uses a variety of technologies; strong fundamentals matter more than fluency in any single stack.
• Proven ability to own complex design work independently and to steer technical direction across teams through credibility and influence.
• nitiative and ownership mindset. Judgment, curiosity, and the drive to reach the right outcome are essential; syntax can be learned.
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native and modern backend architectures; comfort with relational and NoSQL data stores and the tradeoffs between them.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS (EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE):

• Experience partnering with engineering leadership on design—taking the lead on architecture while keeping stakeholders informed and unblocked.
• Experience modernizing legacy systems and evolving event-driven or microservice-oriented architectures.
• Practical, thoughtful use of AI as a force multiplier: knowing when it accelerates work and when it doesn't, and how to use it responsibly in the workflow.
• Experience in regulated or safety-sensitive domains.
• Relevant cloud certifications or equivalent depth.

Not currently recruiting from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington, or New York