Principal Software Engineer

The Role

We’re looking for a Principal Software Engineer to serve as a senior technical leader across Ro’s engineering organization. In this role, you’ll help shape the long-term direction of our platform, guide the evolution of critical systems, and drive architectural decisions that enable Ro to scale safely, sustainably, and quickly.

You’ll partner across engineering, product, design, and cross-functional leadership to define technical strategy, anticipate risks, mentor senior engineers, and guide teams toward resilient, maintainable, high-quality solutions. This role is ideal for someone energized by system-wide impact, complex technical challenges, and helping raise the engineering bar across Ro.

What You’ll Do

• Define and drive the architectural vision for key systems and platforms, ensuring scalability, reliability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
• Evaluate and recommend foundational technologies, patterns, and practices that position Ro for future growth.
• Translate complex, ambiguous problem spaces into clear technical roadmaps, identifying tradeoffs and guiding teams toward strategic solutions.
• Lead organization-wide initiatives that improve system health, observability, performance, security, and operational excellence.
• Partner with product, design, data, and other teams to align technical strategy with business priorities.
• Break down large, multi-team initiatives into actionable plans and drive them from concept to delivery.
• Mentor and support Staff, Senior, and early-career engineers in both technical and strategic growth.
• Foster a culture of high-quality engineering, thoughtful design, rigorous review, and continuous learning.
• Provide technical leadership in design reviews, architecture discussions, and cross-team forums.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to engineering leadership and cross-functional partners.

What You’ll Bring to the Team

• 12+ years of experience building scalable, maintainable software systems
• A proven track record of technical leadership across multiple teams or domains, including designing and evolving complex distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in backend engineering (preferably with a strong proficiency in Python) and experience with distributed systems and relational databases.
• Experience in metrics instrumentation and data-driven performance tuning, leveraging load testing infrastructure and tools like Datadog.
• Strong architectural skills with the ability to reason about long-term tradeoffs, system interactions, operational risks, and platform evolution.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical strategy, drive alignment across multiple teams, and guide organizations through ambiguity.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• A passion for and strong track record of developing other engineers and raising the technical bar through mentorship, coaching, and leadership.

Bonus Skills

• Experience in telehealth or other highly-regulated industries.

We’ve Got You Covered

• Full medical, dental, and vision insurance + OneMedical membership
• Healthcare and Dependent Care FSA
• 401(k) with company match
• Flexible PTO
• Wellbeing + Learning & Growth reimbursements
• Paid parental leave + Fertility benefits
• Pet insurance
• Student loan refinancing
• Virtual resources for mindfulness, counseling, and fitness