Principal Engineer / Architect

Our company works with organizations to promote data protection best practices within their organization as well as establish compliance with standards such as PCI DSS and regulations such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

More than 225,000 users in 100+ countries look to our company for tools, technology, and strategic security support. Founded in 2008 with a decade of service to the hospitality industry, we are a privately held company with regional offices across the United States and internationally. We are currently seeking a Principal Engineer / Software Architect to add to our team.

We seek a highly experienced Principal Engineer / Software Architect to lead the technical vision and architectural direction of our platform. This role combines strategic technical leadership with hands-on development, requiring someone who can design scalable systems architecture, drive engineering excellence across teams, and contribute to complex technical implementations while mentoring senior engineers.

The Principal Engineer / Software Architect will be responsible for the following tasks:

• Define and drive the overall technical architecture and platform strategy across multiple systems and teams.
• Design scalable, resilient, and maintainable system architectures using PHP (Laravel/Symfony), Node.js, and modern cloud technologies.
• Lead architectural decision-making for microservices, APIs, databases, and cloud infrastructure.
• Design and implement event-driven architectures using Kafka, message queues, and stream processing for real-time data flows.
• Lead SaaS platform architecture decisions including multi-tenancy strategies, data isolation, and scalable subscription models.
• Drive engineering excellence through comprehensive code reviews and establish engineering best practices across all technology stacks.
• Collaborate with engineering leadership, product teams, and stakeholders to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions.
• Drive technical innovation and evaluate emerging technologies for platform adoption.
• Mentor and guide Senior Engineers and Technical Leads on complex architectural challenges.
• Own end-to-end delivery of critical platform components and system integrations.
• Establish and maintain technical standards, documentation, and architectural guidelines.
• Lead incident response for critical system issues and drive post-mortem analysis.
• Participate in hiring and onboarding of senior engineering talent.

• 7-10+ years of professional software engineering experience with 3+ years in principal/architect roles.
• Proven track record of designing and architecting high-scale, distributed platforms.
• Deep understanding of security architecture, authentication systems, and compliance requirements.
• Experience implementing security controls in distributed systems.
• Advanced proficiency in PHP frameworks (Laravel/Symfony) with deep understanding of the PHP ecosystem.
• Strong expertise in Node.js for scalable server-side applications and microservices architecture.
• Extensive experience with React and modern front-end architecture patterns.
• Expert-level knowledge of database design and optimization (SQL, NoSQL, caching strategies).
• Proven experience architecting and deploying systems on AWS cloud services.
• Deep understanding of RESTful APIs, GraphQL, and microservices design patterns.
• Proven experience with event-driven architecture and distributed messaging systems (Apache Kafka, AWS Kinesis, RabbitMQ).
• Experience with containerization, orchestration, and modern DevOps practices.
• Knowledge of SaaS platform patterns including multi-tenancy, scalable data modeling, and tenant isolation strategies.
• A strong background in system performance optimization, scalability, and reliability.
• Excellent technical communication skills and ability to influence without authority.
• Experience leading technical teams and driving architectural decisions across multiple projects.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience.

• Advanced TypeScript experience for large-scale application development.
• Experience with modern front-end meta-frameworks (e.g. Next.js) and server-side rendering.
• Deep knowledge of GraphQL implementation and federation patterns.
• Python programming experience for data processing, automation, and AI/ML integration.
• Knowledge of modern build tools and development workflows (CI/CD pipelines).
• Experience with monitoring, observability, and APM tools (New Relic, DataDog, Elasticsearch).
• Understanding of security architecture, authentication systems, and compliance requirements.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker).
• Knowledge of database scaling patterns (sharding, read replicas, distributed databases).
• Experience with A/B testing frameworks and feature flag systems.
• Background in high-traffic, mission-critical applications serving millions of users.
• Experience mentoring Senior Engineers and leading architecture review processes.
• Understanding of business metrics and ability to align technical decisions with business outcomes.

• The salary offer to the successful candidate will be based on job-related education, geographic location, training, licensure and certifications, and other factors.
• We provide significant career growth, competitive compensation, and a benefits package including generous personal time off, holiday pay, health insurance, and 401k.