Principal Software Engineer

About the Role :

We are looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) - an engineer who builds production software fluently with AI coding agents and ships it where it matters. You don't just use AI to autocomplete; you architect, prompt, review, and ship by orchestrating tools like Claude Desktop / Claude Code or Codex Desktop as a core part of your workflow. You think in problems and outcomes, translate them into well-scoped prompts and specs, and rigorously verify what the agent produces.

This is a hands-on engineering role. AI accelerates you, but you own correctness, architecture, security, and quality.

What You'll Do :

- Build, ship, and maintain features end-to-end using AI agentic coding tools (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Codex Desktop, or similar) as a primary driver of development.

- Decompose ambiguous requirements into clear specs, prompts, and acceptance criteria that an AI agent can execute against.

- Review, debug, refactor, and harden AI-generated code - you are accountable for what gets merged, not the model.

- Design clean architectures, data models, and APIs; make sound trade-off decisions on performance, scalability, and maintainability.

- Write and maintain tests, validation layers, and guardrails so AI-assisted output is reliable and safe.

- Collaborate with product, design, and other engineers to move quickly from idea to working artifact.

- Continuously improve team workflows, prompt patterns, and tooling for AI-assisted development.

Must-Have : Deep Expertise in One Stack :

You must have genuine, production-level depth in at least one of these stacks (not surface familiarity across many) :

- Flutter / React Native (cross-platform mobile)

- .NET Core + MS SQL Server (PostgreSQL a plus)

- Python + Node.js (PostgreSQL a plus)

- Java + MySQL (PostgreSQL a plus)

- Next.js / Angular (modern web front-end)

Enterprise-Grade Engineering Foundations (Must-Have) :

Beyond a single stack, building production enterprise applications demands working command of the following - these are non-negotiable :

- Authentication & Authorization : OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect, SSO, JWT, and Role-Based / Row-Level Access Control (RBAC / RLS).

- Security - secure coding (OWASP Top 10), data encryption in transit and at rest, secrets/key management, input validation, and audit logging.

- Databases : relational schema design, indexing, transactions, query optimization, and connection pooling; caching layers (e.g. Redis).

- API Design : REST / GraphQL, versioning, pagination, rate limiting, and clean contract-first interface design.

- Architecture & Scalability : modular monolith or microservices, design patterns, statelessness, horizontal scaling, and high availability.

- Asynchronous & Event-Driven Processing : message queues / brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ, or equivalent) and background job handling.

- CI/CD & DevOps - Git-based pipelines, automated builds, containerization (Docker), and orchestration (Kubernetes); Infrastructure-as-Code a plus.

- Cloud Platforms - deploying and operating on Azure, AWS, or GCP.

- Observability - structured logging, metrics, distributed tracing, and monitoring/alerting (e.g. ELK, Prometheus/Grafana, App Insights).

- Testing & Quality : unit, integration, and end-to-end testing; code quality gates and static analysis.

Required Qualifications :

- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field (Master's a plus). Equivalent demonstrable experience will be considered.

- Minimum 8 - 10 years of hands-on software development experience, operating at a Principal / Software Architect level of seniority.

- Principal-grade, in-depth technical mastery - able to reason from first principles across the full stack : system design, architecture, performance, concurrency, data modelling, and security. You set the technical bar, not just meet it.

- Must have built and delivered at least one enterprise-grade application using Claude Desktop / Claude Code or Codex Desktop - end-to-end, in production or production-ready.

- Deep, production-grade command of one of the five tech stacks above.

- Strong fundamentals : data structures, algorithms, version control (Git), debugging, and code review discipline.

- Solid grasp of databases, APIs (REST/GraphQL), and software architecture patterns.

- Ability to read, understand, and critically evaluate code you didn't write line-by-line.

- Clear written communication - you can specify, document, and explain your work.

Nice to Have :

- Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers, tool integrations, or building AI agents.

- CI/CD, containerization (Docker), and cloud deployment (Azure / AWS / GCP).

- Familiarity with prompt engineering and evaluating LLM outputs.

- Open-source contributions or a portfolio of AI-assisted projects.

What We Value :

- Ownership over output - you treat AI as a powerful collaborator, never an excuse for bugs.

- Speed with judgment - you ship fast but know when to slow down and verify.

- Curiosity - you stay current as AI tooling evolves week to week.

- Craftsmanship - clean, secure, maintainable code matters even when a machine wrote the first draft.

Skills

GraphQL, Full Stack, Microservices Architecture, AWS, System Design, System Architecture, Data Structure, Algorithm