Principal Engineer

Lead the design of complex, distributed micro-services and platforms, focusing on scalability, resilience, and maintainability. You will ensure architecturally inter-connected teams are aligned and take accountability for the reliability, security, and performance of the fleet of micro-services and platform capabilities.

What you'll do

• Lead the design of complex, distributed micro-services and platforms, focusing on scalability, resilience, and maintainability.
• Ensure architecturally inter-connected teams are aligned; facilitate bi-directional information flow between domain teams and the wider tech organization.
• Drive high-level technology decisions, including framework selection, cloud infrastructure strategy, and third-party integrations.
• Take accountability for the reliability, security, and performance of the fleet of micro-services and platform capabilities.
• Establish and enforce coding standards, code review guidelines, and architectural patterns to ensure high-quality delivery.
• Lead the resolution of complex, cross-team technical incidents and conduct blameless post-mortems to prevent recurrence.
• Help teammates grow as craftspeople through technical mentorship, pair programming, and sponsorship.
• Translate complex technical topics into business value for Product Owners and stakeholders; translate business goals into technical requirements for engineers.

What you'll need

• Bachelor degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
• 10+ years of total professional experience in Software Engineering.
• 3+ years in a Technical Leadership role (e.g., Staff, Principal, Lead Architect) driving technical decisions across multiple teams or critical systems.
• Proven track record of designing and evolving high-traffic, distributed systems or APIs.
• Experience operating in a DevOps/You-Build-It-You-Run-It culture.
• Ability to read, review, and debug code in multiple modern languages (e.g., Java, Go) and adapt to the right tool for the job.
• Deep expertise in designing distributed, high-throughput systems and selecting appropriate architectural patterns based on business requirements and trade-offs.
• Ability to influence roadmaps and engineering culture without direct managerial authority.

Nice to have

• Excellent written and verbal English (German is a plus).
• Ability to evolve monolithic or legacy systems into modern architectures without disrupting business continuity.
• Advanced understanding of the container ecosystem and orchestration strategies.

What they offer

• Competitive salary and variable remuneration program.
• Learning & development budget of €1000 per year and transparent growth framework.
• Home office budget and monthly meal allowance.
• 28 vacation days, increasing after 2 and 3 years.
• Deutschland ticket subsidy and opportunity to work abroad for up to 12 weeks per year.