Principal Software Engineer (Rosterfy)

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the architecture and technical direction for core platform domains used by both squads (e.g. event-driven workflows, modular boundaries, AI capabilities).
• Spend 60–80% of your time hands-on: designing, coding, reviewing, pairing, and debugging in Laravel, Next.js, and our cloud environments.
• Lead the technical discovery and delivery of high-impact initiatives, especially those that cross team boundaries or require significant architectural change.
• Define, document, and evangelize architectural principles, coding standards, and patterns for scalable, resilient, observable systems.
• Raise the bar for quality: champion shift-left testing, CI/CD improvements, and production observability; model best practices in test design and validation.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers through design reviews, pairing, and feedback, helping them own systems end-to-end rather than taking work away.
• Evaluate and prototype emerging technologies (e.g., Vertex AI, GenAI workflows, data pipelines) and guide pragmatic adoption into product and platform.
• Act as a senior engineering voice in roadmap planning, estimation, and trade-off decisions, ensuring technical health is represented alongside product goals.
• Works across both product squads rather than being embedded in one team, focusing on cross-cutting systems and the hardest technical problems.
• Partners with the Engineering Leadership on long-term architecture and with Tech Leads on execution and engineering practices.

Technical Requirements:

• 8+ years in software engineering, including experience as a staff/principal engineer or architect in a SaaS company.
• Deep expertise in backend engineering with Laravel (Laravel 10+ and PHP 8+) or similar languages, SQL/relational databases, caching, and RESTful APIs.
• Strong frontend design and architectural experience with React/Next.js.
• Experience working with scalable, secure cloud infrastructure (AWS required, & GCP).
• Familiarity with event-driven or modular architectures and containerized environments (e.g., EKS/Kubernetes).
• Deep understanding of software testing strategies and CI/CD pipelines.
• Bonus: experience with Looker, BigQuery, ML pipelines, or distributed system performance tuning.
• Bonus: Agent AI Architecture.

AI Driven Skills:

• Feature delivery velocity (Copilot, Gemini, test automation, scaffolding).
• Building AI-augmented product experiences (LLM API usage, prompt design).
• Coaching others on integrating GenAI into workflows.

Character & Mindset:

• Resilient and adaptable – You embrace change and help others navigate ambiguity with calm and confidence.
• Proactive problem solver – You identify issues early, take ownership, and push solutions forward without waiting to be asked.
• Clear communicator – You articulate ideas clearly, write well, and listen with intent. You create shared understanding.
• Product-minded – You’re curious about customer needs, ask “why?”, and advocate for solutions that deliver real value.
• Leads through influence – You raise the bar by mentoring others, setting standards, and sharing knowledge—not by authority.
• Documentation-first thinker – You value written clarity, and help your team by documenting decisions, code, and processes.

Shift-Left QA Expectation:

• Lead by example in test strategy and validation.
• Own test coverage, pipeline health, and regression control.

Success Measures:

• Enables long-term scalability and stability through architectural design.
• Mentors and unblocks engineers across teams, raising overall technical quality.
• Drives alignment on technical priorities and engineering direction.
• Trusted advisor to Product sharing functional knowledge.
• Proactively identifies and resolves system-level challenges.
• Supports successful implementation of new platform capabilities (e.g., AI readiness, multi-cloud architecture).

Nice to Have:

• Experience with data products like Looker, BigQuery, or analytics pipelines.
• Exposure to event-driven systems, asynchronous workflows, or message queues (e.g., AWS SQS, Kafka, Pub/Sub).
• Experience with design systems | frontend architecture.
• Passionate about product quality and customer experience.
• Experience with platform engineering or building shared infrastructure in modular monoliths.
• Any exposure to AI-driven tooling, systems.