Principal Software Engineer
At a glance
Senior Engineering Leadership role at Coworker.ai. San Francisco or Atlanta · full-time · $220,000–$280,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Spend most of your time building and shipping code, while owning architecture and technical plans for a core domain
- Take on difficult domain problems and guide senior and staff engineers through their toughest technical questions
- Shape product direction with the product team, weighing proposed solutions against technical constraints
- Lead cross-team engineering efforts, production incident reviews, and operational improvements with measurable business impact
- Represent the team through enterprise AI talks, writing, or open-source work, and interview senior engineering candidates
What you bring
- At least ten years of professional software development experience
- A bachelor's or master's degree, preferably in computer science
- You have taken new products from initial design through implementation and deployment
- Deep skill in two or more areas such as distributed systems, data pipelines, AI/ML infrastructure, security, or large-scale frontend architecture
- You have set service targets, operated large production systems, and influenced technical direction across team boundaries
Who this fits
This suits a hands-on principal engineer who wants to spend most of their time coding while also mentoring engineers and setting technical direction. You should be comfortable taking ownership of ambiguous problems, leading without formal authority, and using AI tools to improve development speed. The role is hybrid in San Francisco or Atlanta.
From the employer
Principal Software Engineer
About the job
We need a talented, ambitious, hard-working principal software engineer with 10+ years of experience who can help us build the foundation for the next era of work. We need someone who wants to change how the world works, one company at a time.
You are that person.
You are a deeply technical full stack software developer who ships high-quality code as the strong majority of your time, while also providing thought leadership and mentorship to the team. You are obsessed with making customers happy, and will do whatever it takes to make it happen. You are autonomous and happy to take on big, ambiguous problems at a fast-growing startup.
You know when to push and when to rest; you model sustainable high performance for the team. But you (like us!) are more than your code and your hard work! You love building a culture where people love to work but believe in putting people first while having a huge amount of fun while you do your job.
You will burn tokens like the VC money will never stop flowing.
What you will do in the role
Ship code daily. Hands-on development is the strong majority of your time
Own the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain; dive deep into the hardest problems when needed
Mentor senior and staff engineers; be the technical escalation point for the toughest challenges in your domain
Be a thought leader in the enterprise AI space
Represent Coworker externally through talks, blog posts, or open-source contributions
Guide early Coworker technical architecture decisions that will resonate throughout the global economy for years to come
Establish the Coworker engineering culture - live the mission and set a standard
Help the product team craft the team vision, strategy, and roadmap while proposing innovative solutions, as well as understanding technical limitations
Drive cross-org technical initiatives with measurable business impact
Drive incident response and post-mortems for company-critical issues; ensure we learn systemically from failures
Hire and interview for senior+ roles; raise the bar for engineering talent across the org
Have an inordinate amount of fun
Push the frontier of what’s possible with Enterprise AI
Position Qualifications
Bachelor's and/or master's degree (Computer Science preferred)
10+ years of professional development experience
Experience and desire to own new products from zero to one, from system design to implementation to deployment
Strong communication and collaboration skills
Experience and comfort using AI aggressively to improve velocity with looping, reinforcement
Any languages are fine, we primarily use GoLang, Typescript, and Python
Deep expertise in at least two of: distributed systems, data pipelines, AI/ML infrastructure, security, or frontend architecture at scale
Proven ability to lead without direct authority; influenced technical direction across team boundaries
Experience defining SLAs, SLOs, and running production systems at scale with strong operational discipline
Perks
Unlimited paid time off
Medical, dental, and vision
Early and generous employee stock option plan
$100 monthly health and wellness benefit
401(k) plan
Paid family leave
Apple products for work
Daily tetris matches
Drop us a line!
We encourage you to drop us a line even if you feel over- or under-qualified. We want to find the best people to help us build Coworker no matter who they are. We have a lot of different areas of responsibility and we are always happy to brainstorm with you about what would be the best fit.
Coworker.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We believe everyone should feel great about being their authentic selves at Coworker–this is the only way to do our best work! We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We believe that great employees come from diverse backgrounds.
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