Principal Software Engineer

### Who you are
- 8–12 years of experience designing and building backend or platform software for enterprise SaaS or cloud-native applications, with a primary focus on application-layer engineering, not infrastructure operations
- Deep expertise in Java, Spring Boot, Hibernate, MySQL, and RESTful API design — demonstrated through architecting complex, high-throughput production systems
- 5+ years working in cloud environments (AWS preferred); strong understanding of how cloud services affect software design, performance, and cost — not just how to configure them
- Demonstrated experience independently driving multi-team software design decisions: writing design docs, facilitating alignment, and managing technical tradeoffs
- Strong command of distributed systems concepts: event-driven architecture, eventual consistency, multi-tenancy isolation, rate limiting, and fault tolerance — applied through code, not configuration
- Demonstrated active use of Generative AI coding tools in professional software development within the past 12 months
- Hands-on experience with Elasticsearch and real-time messaging systems (Kafka, SQS, or equivalent) as components of application architecture
- Experience with feature flags and experimentation frameworks integrated into application code in high-scale SaaS environments
- Background in Workforce Management, HR Tech, scheduling, or other complex regulated enterprise domains
- Familiarity with multi-jurisdiction labor compliance requirements

### What the job involves
- We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to serve as a technical force-multiplier on Legion's Platform Engineering Team — the backbone of our multi-tenant SaaS application
- As a Principal, you independently own significant platform domains, drive architectural decisions that span multiple teams, and elevate the engineering capability of everyone around you
- This role is fundamentally about software engineering at scale
- You will design and build the core platform services, APIs, and data systems that power Legion's product
- You remain deeply hands-on — writing and reviewing production code — while operating with the judgment and autonomy of a staff-level engineer. You are a builder first
- Own the design, implementation, and evolution of one or more core platform domains — such as multi-tenancy, API framework, job processing, data pipelines, or platform SDK/extension points
- Lead end-to-end software design for significant new capabilities, from technical specification through production delivery and long-term maintainability
- Proactively identify and resolve scalability, correctness, and security issues in platform code and data models before they reach production
- Drive data modeling, API design, and service decomposition decisions for high-concurrency, enterprise-scale workloads
- Actively use GenAI coding tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code) as a standard part of your software development workflow — demonstrated prior use required
- Establish team-wide best practices for AI-assisted development and code review
- Produce and champion design docs that establish engineering patterns adopted across Platform and adjacent product teams
- Lead design reviews for complex systems built by senior and mid-level engineers; provide structured, high-signal feedback that improves both the design and the engineer
- Partner closely with architects to translate long-term strategy into well-sequenced, concrete engineering work
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, QA, and Data Engineering to align software design with product and operational requirements
- Define and uphold coding standards, testing practices, and API design conventions for the Platform team
- Drive initiatives that measurably improve platform reliability and developer experience through better software design — not just tooling or process
- Lead post-mortems for significant production issues with a focus on durable software fixes, not operational workarounds
- Participate in on-call rotation; serve as the senior escalation point for complex production issues requiring deep code-level diagnosis
- Actively mentor Engineers through technical pairing, design feedback, and structured growth conversations
- Identify and close skill gaps on the team through knowledge-sharing, internal documentation, and architectural walkthroughs
- Contribute to hiring: define the technical bar, design engineering interview problems, and provide substantive written debrief feedback

### Benefits
- $0 monthly premium and other flexible medical, dental, and vision plans effective on the first day of employment
- 401k plan
- Unlimited Paid Time Off and Paid Holidays
- Parental Leave
- Equity
- Monthly Wellness Reimbursement
- Monthly Lunch on Legion