Principal Software Engineer, Backend Systems

About the role

About the Company

Our client is building the infrastructure layer for AI-powered operations.

The platform ingests massive volumes of messy, unstructured information across documents, messages, voice, system events, and operational requests, then transforms that complexity into structured workflows that real teams depend on every day.

This is not a chatbot, prototype, or thin AI wrapper. It is a live production platform solving hard backend problems around high-volume ingestion, distributed systems, workflow orchestration, data reliability, and automation at scale.

Backed by recent funding and strong customer growth, the company is now investing heavily in the core platform that will support its next phase of scale.

For the right engineer, this is a chance to own foundational backend systems at the point where AI, automation, and real-world infrastructure meet.

What You’ll Actually Be Working On

The platform ingests high volumes of operational inputs including documents, emails, faxes, voice, system events, and customer requests, then transforms them into structured workflows used by teams in real time.

This includes:

File ingestion and processing pipelines, including OCR and document parsing

Event-driven workflows for routing, transformation, and downstream actions

Systems that must gracefully handle failure states, retries, and partial data

AI-assisted processing layers where LLMs are used to extract, interpret, and act on unstructured inputs

Much of the system exists today and works, but was built for an earlier stage. The next phase is about scaling reliability, improving correctness, and evolving the architecture under real production load.

About the Role

We are hiring a Principal Software Engineer to take ownership of the core backend systems powering a high-throughput, production platform used daily by real organizations.

This is a deeply hands-on individual contributor role for an engineer who has repeatedly stepped into complex, imperfect backend systems and changed how they work as scale and usage increased. You will own core services, make architectural tradeoffs under real operational pressure, and lead the evolution of systems that process large volumes of unstructured data every day.

You will work closely with senior engineering leadership, influence platform direction, and take responsibility for systems from design through production. This role is best suited for engineers who enjoy solving hard backend problems, operating close to production, and reshaping systems rather than simply maintaining them.

What You Will Do

Design, build, and evolve backend services that process high-volume operational data in production

Own and reshape distributed systems that power ingestion, transformation, routing, and persistence workflows

Lead the decomposition and redesign of legacy or tightly coupled services into scalable, fault-tolerant systems

Build microservices with strong guarantees around performance, availability, and correctness

Work with event-driven architectures, messaging systems, and data pipelines at scale

Architect and operate cloud-native infrastructure using Kubernetes and GCP

Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across services and data flows

Partner with engineering leadership on long-term platform architecture and technical direction

Ship production systems iteratively while maintaining a high bar for reliability and quality

Work directly with modern AI tools including Claude and similar systems to accelerate development, prototype solutions, and build production features

What We Are Looking For

8+ years of experience building backend or distributed systems in production environments

Proven ownership of services operating under real uptime, latency, and scale constraints

Strong proficiency in Go, Python, or similar backend languages

Experience designing and evolving microservices, APIs, and event-driven systems

Hands-on experience working with high-volume or unstructured data pipelines

Strong cloud-native experience with containerized systems and modern infrastructure tooling

Principal-Level Expectations

You have operated as a senior-most engineer on a team, owning ambiguous, high-impact systems without needing direction

You have stepped into systems that were not built for current scale and led meaningful architectural change

You are comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and being accountable for the outcome in production

Modern Development Approach

Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude, Copilot, or similar, or strong interest in integrating them into your workflow

High ownership mindset with the ability to drive complex problems through to production

Clear communicator who collaborates well across engineering and product teams

Nice to Have

Experience evolving backend platforms in startup or growth-stage environments

Exposure to healthcare, fintech, logistics, or other operationally complex domains

Experience re-architecting systems under live customer load

Background working on systems where architecture evolved alongside the business

This Role Is Not a Fit If

You prefer well-defined problems and stable systems over evolving, imperfect environments

Your recent experience has been focused primarily on internal tools or low-scale applications

You have not worked directly on systems where failure, scale, and correctness are constant concerns

You prefer architectural discussions over hands-on implementation

Compensation and Benefits

Salary range: $200,000 to $300,000 USD depending on experience and impact

Competitive equity package

401(k) program

Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage

Flexible PTO and paid holidays

Paid parental leave

Professional development stipend

Why This Role Matters

This role sits at the core of the platform. The systems you build will directly impact how organizations operate every day, at scale. You will have real ownership, real responsibility, and the opportunity to reshape a platform that is already delivering meaningful impact and is still evolving quickly.

If you enjoy complex backend challenges and want your work to matter, this role was built for you.