Principal Software Engineer

Principal Software Engineer

We're looking for a Principal Software Engineer to take technical ownership of our backend systems and help shape engineering culture across the organization. This isn't just a senior IC role, you'll be at the heart of a mission-critical SaaS platform used by public safety professionals nationwide, setting the architectural direction, mentoring engineers at every level, and working closely with the VP of Engineering and cross-functional leadership to move fast without breaking things. This is a hands-on role with organizational scope, ideal for someone who wants to build and scale real-world systems while investing in the people around them.

Responsibilities include:

• Architect & Build: Take end-to-end ownership of our backend systems, leading the design and development of scalable, production-grade services and APIs.
• Set the Standard: Define and enforce engineering best practices, coding standards, and architectural patterns across the organization.
• Lead & Mentor: Conduct code reviews, provide technical guidance, and grow a culture of craft and continuous improvement across engineering teams at all levels.
• Own the Platform: Drive the evolution of our infrastructure for reliability, performance, and scalability including observability, fault tolerance, and security.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner closely with product, design, and executive leadership to translate business objectives into concrete technical strategy.
• Deploy & Operate (Bonus): Experience with CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure is a plus, but not a core requirement of the role.

Qualifications include:

• 10+ years of backend development experience, including significant time in senior, staff, or principal-level roles.
• Deep expertise in backend systems design and distributed systems, with a track record of owning complex production infrastructure.
• Lead the development of scalable backend services using Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and OpenSearch.
• Proven experience designing and building backend APIs for SaaS products, including multi-tenancy, authentication, versioning, and developer experience.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and experience designing for security, fault tolerance, and observability.
• Experience setting technical direction at an organizational level, not just within a single team.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to make technical trade-offs legible to non-technical stakeholders.
• Prior startup or mission-critical environment experience strongly preferred.
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure (e.g. AWS) at scale.

If you're looking to lead meaningful technical work and help shape a platform used by real-world operators, we'd love to talk.