Principal Software Engineer (Remote)

Position Purpose:
We are seeking an experienced E-commerce Platform Architect to drive the technical vision and architecture for a high-traffic e-commerce website. This role is for a hands-on leader with extensive experience designing, implementing, and optimizing scalable e-commerce platforms in cloud environments, specifically Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The ideal candidate will possess a blend of technical expertise, leadership, and innovation to ensure our platform delivers exceptional performance, user experience, and integration of cutting-edge technologies.

Technical Vision and Leadership:
• Lead the design and development of a robust and scalable e-commerce platform, ensuring it can handle high volumes of transactions (10,000+ TPS).
• Develop a long-term architectural strategy that balances immediate project goals with future scalability.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to integrate core business requirements into technical solutions.

Cloud Architecture (GCP):
• Leverage Google Cloud services (e.g., Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery) to build and optimize platform infrastructure.
• Design and implement highly scalable microservices, containerized deployments using Kubernetes, and serverless computing where necessary.
• Ensure that the architecture adheres to high availability, performance optimization, and cost-efficiency standards.

Machine Learning Integration:
• Collaborate with data scientists to integrate ML models (e.g., personalized recommendations, search optimization) into the e-commerce platform.
• Utilize tools such as BigQuery to manage large datasets for customer insights, marketing strategies, and performance analytics.

Scalability and Performance Optimization:
• Architect solutions that can handle traffic spikes, high transaction volumes, and scale to support future growth.
• Implement strategies for performance monitoring, logging, and real-time analytics to ensure site reliability and optimal user experience.

Cutting-edge Technology Adoption:
• Continuously research and implement new e-commerce, cloud computing, ML/AI, and chatbot technologies to improve the platform’s functionality and performance.
• Stay up-to-date with technical trends and ensure our systems remain competitive in terms of efficiency, speed, and innovation.

Chatbot and Agent Framework Integration:
• Lead the development and deployment of chatbot solutions to enhance customer service and interaction on the platform.
• Optimize conversational AI and agent-based frameworks for seamless integration with other components of the e-commerce system.

Collaboration and Communication:
• Collaborate closely with product managers, developers, and other stakeholders to translate business goals into a technical roadmap.
• Provide mentorship and technical guidance to development teams, fostering a culture of innovation, learning, and collaboration.

Key Responsibilities:
• 70% Delivery & Execution
• Collaborates and pairs with other product team members (UX, engineering, and product management) to create secure, reliable, scalable software solutions
• Documents, reviews and ensures that all quality and change control standards are met
• Writes custom code or scripts to automate infrastructure, monitoring services, and test cases
• Writes custom code or scripts to do “destructive testing” to ensure adequate resiliency in production
• Creates meaningful dashboards, logging, alerting, and responses to ensure that issues are captured and addressed proactively
• Contributes to enterprise-wide tools to drive destructive testing, automation, or engineering empowerment
• Identifies product enhancements (client-facing or technical) to create a better experience for the end users
• Identifies unsecured code areas and implements fixes as they are discovered with or without tooling
• Identifies, implements, and shares technical solutions that can be used across the organization
• Creates and architects foundational code elements that can be reused many times by a product
• Creates meaningful architecture diagrams and other documentation needed for security reviews or other interested parties
• Defines Service Level Objectives for product to constantly measure their reliability in production and help prioritize backlog work
• 20% Support & Enablement:
• Fields questions from other product teams or support teams
• Monitors tools and participates in conversations to encourage collaboration across product teams
• Provides application support for software running in production
• Proactively monitors production Service Level Objectives for products
• Works with vendors and the open-source community to help identify and implement feature enhancements in software products
• Works with other product teams to create API specifications and contracts for shared data
• Proactively reviews the performance and capacity of all aspects of production: code, infrastructure, data, and message processing
• Triages high priority issues and outages as they arise
• 10% Learning:
• Participates in and leads learning activities around modern software design and development core practices (communities of practice)
• Learns, through reading, tutorials, and videos, new technologies and best practices being used within other technology organizations
• Attends conferences and learns how to apply new technologies where appropriate

Direct Manager/Direct Reports:
• Typically reports to the Software Engineer Manager or Sr. Manager, Technology Director or Sr. Director.

Travel Requirements:
• Typically requires overnight travel less than 10% of the time.

Physical Requirements:
• Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.

Working Conditions:
• Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.

Minimum Qualifications:
• Must be eighteen years of age or older.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.
• Mastery of an object oriented programming language (preferably Java)
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States

Preferred Qualifications:
• 10+ years of experience in software development and architecture, with at least 5 years leading e-commerce platforms.
• Expertise in cloud technologies, particularly GCP. Experience with other cloud environments (AWS, Azure) is a plus.
• Strong background in microservices architecture, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and serverless technologies.
• Proven ability to design and implement scalable, high-performance systems capable of handling high traffic (10,000+ TPS).
• Experience with BigQuery, GraphQL, and ML integration for e-commerce applications.
• Experience developing or integrating chatbots and conversational AI into e-commerce platforms.
• Strong knowledge of security, compliance, and data privacy in the context of cloud-based e-commerce.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to collaborate across teams and present ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Preferred Skills:
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment in a cloud-native environment.
• Familiarity with SEO optimization, web performance metrics (LCP, FID, CLS), and Core Web Vitals.
• Knowledge of DORA metrics and experience improving developer productivity through tooling and automation.

Minimum Education:
• The knowledge, skills and abilities typically acquired through the completion of a bachelor’s degree program or equivalent degree in a field of study related to the job.

Preferred Education:
• No additional education

Minimum Years of Work Experience:
• 6

Preferred Years of Work Experience:
• No additional years of experience

Minimum Leadership Experience:
• None

Preferred Leadership Experience:
• None

Certifications:
• None

Competencies:
• Action Oriented: Taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy and enthusiasm
• Business Insight: Applying knowledge of business and the marketplace to advance the organization’s goals
• Collaborates: Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives
• Communicates Effectively: Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences
• Cultivates Innovation: Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful
• Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances
• Global Perspective: Taking a broad view when approaching issues; using a global lens
• Interpersonal Savvy: Relating openly and comfortably with diverse groups of people
• Manages Ambiguity: Operating effectively, even when things are not certain or the way forward is not clear
• Manages Complexity: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to effectively solve problems
• Nimble Learning: Actively learning through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder
• Optimizes Work Processes: Knowing the most effective and efficient processes to get things done, with a focus on continuous improvement
• Self-Development: Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels
• Situational Adaptability: Adapting approach and demeanor in real time to match the shifting demands of different situations

The application window is anticipated to be closed on May 30, 2025.

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