Principal Engineer

About the company Our client is a fast-growing software company. The role Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Act as the top individual-contributor engineer, responsible for the design, engineering standards and delivery of a major area of a software platform. The work blends hands-on development with technical mentorship and regular collaboration with executives and product counterparts. What you'll do - Take full accountability for a major technical area, covering its design, quality expectations and results. - Design and write production code alongside your teammates to set the engineering bar by example. - Join recurring leadership discussions and work with a product partner as a peer to achieve business goals. - Coach and support engineers and team leads, strengthening their skills while remaining a hands-on contributor. - Review and ship work while safeguarding quality and pace across multiple engineering groups. - Encourage AI-first habits by building on current AI models and bringing consistency to the AI-assisted development tools the teams use. - Contribute to a range of platform areas, such as runtime services, intelligent agents, integrations and data infrastructure. Requirements What we're looking for - A decade or more of engineering experience delivering critical systems that run in production at significant scale. - Solid skills in software design, reviewing technical architecture and writing code yourself. - A record of launching new products from the ground up and carrying responsibility for an entire area of the system. - Daily, in-depth use of current AI-assisted development tools. - At least 2 years of recent experience at a growth-stage startup; a background at a large technology company is also welcome. - Sound engineering fundamentals, ideally with Node.js and Python. - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related STEM field. - Ability to work on-site 5 days a week. Bonus points - Experience as a technical founder or founding engineer. - Familiarity with conversational or voice AI, or with financial services technology. - Articles, conference presentations or open-source contributions related to AI or platform engineering. Benefits Compensation and benefits - Base salary: USD 335,000 to 375,000 per year - Equity - Health, dental and vision coverage - Retirement plan - Flexible time off - Paid parental leave - Mental health and wellness benefits - Family benefits Location and work model - San Francisco, CA, United States - On-site, 5 days per week in office - Full-time