Principal Software Engineer

Quick Facts

• Role: Principal Software Engineer (hands-on architect and lead developer)

• Focus: Populus.ai and Elevate platform technical ownership, architecture, and production development

• Hands-on split: ~60–70% development, ~30–40% architecture and technical leadership

Description

You will be the technical owner of the Populus.ai / Elevate platform, combining platform architecture with weekly production code delivery.

You will lead a small distributed team and external development partners through design oversight, code review, and example-led practices.

The work spans ETL pipelines, backend APIs, data products, third-party integrations, infrastructure as code, reliability/security, and production incident escalation.

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3+ years owning system architecture in a principal/staff/lead role

• Still hands-on: writing production code as a core part of the role within the last 2–3 years

• Expert Python development

• Strong PostgreSQL and analytical SQL skills; experience with PostGIS and geospatial data

• Production front-end experience with TypeScript and React (including map-based interfaces)

• Google Cloud Platform experience (Cloud SQL, IAM/service accounts, Secret Manager, Cloud Storage, monitoring, logging)

• Infrastructure as code with Terraform

• Experience building and operating ETL pipelines with Apache Airflow (or similar)

• Docker and CI/CD via GitHub

• Track record of end-to-end debugging of complex data issues

• Experience leading and mentoring distributed/offshore engineers

Benefits

• 401(k) with matching

• Dental, health, vision, and life insurance

• Paid time off