Principal Engineer (Technical Architect) - AI/ML & Backend Systems

Forward Financing is a financial technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, with team members across the United States, Dominican Republic, and Canada. The company is dedicated to unlocking capital for small businesses, recognized as a Best Place to Work by Built In Boston and certified as a Great Place To Work®.

At Forward, we're building a world-class fintech platform to empower small businesses. Our engineering team isn’t just a support function—it’s a core driver of the business. We leverage data from dozens of third-party vendors to fuel our AI/ML initiatives and create a more sophisticated financial ecosystem.

We’re seeking a seasoned Principal Engineer with an architect’s mindset to own the technical vision and execution. As a technical leader, you will be instrumental in building the foundations that support our next phase of growth.

In this role, you will:

• Architect the Future: Design and lead the implementation of scalable, reliable, and highly efficient systems. Your decisions will directly impact our ability to grow and innovate. You will design, blueprint, and lead the development of our core platform, ensuring it is scalable, reliable, and efficient.

• Be a Technical Leader: Set the technical direction, raise the bar for code quality, design patterns, and operational excellence from conception through deployment. Serve as the lead engineer for your domain, driving technical excellence and quality from design to deployment.

• Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: Lead complex, cross-team initiatives requiring technical alignment across multiple engineering teams and business domains. Steer cross-team planning and execution for critical strategic priorities.

• Champion Best Practices: Act as the subject matter expert on our software ecosystem, promoting architectural integrity and technical best practices. Ensure highly resilient and observable systems, address technical debt, and resolve incidents promptly.

• Mentor and Elevate: Improve the quality and efficiency of the engineering team through technical guidance, mentorship, and sponsorship, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous learning.

• Own the Ecosystem: Maintain high engagement across multiple teams, build resilient and observable systems, and promptly address bugs and incidents.

Why you should apply:

• Join a mission-driven company committed to providing fast, flexible funding for underserved small businesses.

• Enjoy flexibility with remote work options, hybrid schedules, and a focus on contributions over location.

Role Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in technical leadership, mentorship, and sponsorship.

• Deep expertise in designing and implementing complex, distributed backend systems, scalable architectures across multiple software applications and/or languages (Ruby on Rails required).

• Excellent written and verbal communication.

• Significant ability to influence others.

• Passion for learning and self-development.

• Typically 5+ years of experience in agile software development.

• Experience with front-end architecture or a full-stack perspective, understanding how backend services impact the end-user experience.

• Typically holds a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience.