Principal Software Engineer

As a Principal Engineer at BuildOps, you will lead engineering efforts, set the technical vision, and align technology with business objectives at the highest level. BuildOps is mission-critical operational software for our customers—uptime, reliability, and scalability are essential to maintaining trust. As we continue to experience rapid growth, platformization and technological excellence are foundational to our strategy. Reporting directly to senior engineering leadership, you will lead technical initiatives and strike teams to solve some of the most complex challenges in our industry.

You will own the continual refinement of our technology roadmap, defining approaches to the platformization of APIs, data ingestion pipelines, service architecture, and financial/accounting systems. You will work across all teams, bridging knowledge gaps and ensuring local alignment with the global technical strategy.

What You’ll Do

• Influence multiple engineering groups as a technical lead or through exceptional technical and process contributions that enable teams to have greater impact
• Proactively identify and resolve conflicts, concerns, and expectation mismatches between teams or individuals to ensure smooth execution of your roadmap and adjacent initiatives
• Use a deep understanding of company goals and strategy to guide technical investments across the organization
• Extend your influence beyond engineering by effectively driving cross-functional changes that improve both product and engineering outcomes
• Design and deliver systems that exemplify technical excellence and embody BuildOps’ engineering values
• Leverage your understanding of industry trends to influence technical direction and foster innovation
• Contribute to engineering-wide initiatives to enhance customer experience, system performance, operational excellence, productivity, learning, and knowledge sharing
• Mentor senior engineers, directly impacting their technical growth and career development.

What We Look For

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, including significant experience leading complex, full-stack systems in modern JavaScript/TypeScript environments
•  Expertise in designing and evolving scalable frontend architectures, with deep understanding of React.js, state management, and frontend performance optimization
• Strong backend design and architecture experience using Node.js, with hands-on knowledge of GraphQL (Apollo, Relay) and RESTful service patterns
• Proficiency with SQL databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL, including experience designing schema, optimizing queries, and managing data at scale
• Strong background in performance optimization across the stack — from database indexing and caching to frontend rendering strategies and distributed systems performance
• Experience architecting and scaling event-driven systems, messaging infrastructure (Kafka, RabbitMQ), and real-time data pipelines
• Expertise in containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and modern cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), with experience designing resilient and cost-efficient systems
• Ability to guide teams in CI/CD best practices, ensuring reliable, automated, and scalable deployment processes
• Experience driving technical strategy, establishing engineering standards, and influencing architectural decisions across multiple teams
• Proven track record of mentoring senior engineers and influencing peers through technical leadership, design reviews, and knowledge sharing
• Strong communication and technical writing skills for cross-functional alignment and long-term documentation
• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field

Compensation

• $196,000 - $262,000 base salary range + annual bonus