Principal Software Engineer

Introduction:

Are you searching for an opportunity to play a key role in driving the dramatic growth of a highly successful software company?

At Poppulo, we’re working on what’s next in communications and workplace technology. As a pioneer in this industry, we understand that meaningfully reaching every employee is hard. And so is managing office space in a hybrid world. And so is improving the customer and guest experience. We exist to make each of these things easier. We exist to bring harmony to our customers. 

And we do that at enterprise scale. Our omnichannel employee communications, customer communications, and workplace experience platform is trusted by over 6,000 organizations today, reaching more than 35M employees and delivering content to 500,000+ digital signs.

We know there’s no such thing as a “perfect" candidate - we’re all a work in progress and are growing new skills and capabilities all the time. We encourage you to apply for a position with Poppulo even if you don’t meet 100% of the requirements. We believe in fostering an environment where there is a diversity of perspectives, in hopes that we can all thrive.

Job Summary

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to drive technical excellence and scalability across our SaaS Employee Communications platform.

In this role, you will act as a hands-on technical leader, designing and delivering complex features, improving system performance and reliability, and mentoring engineers across the team. This position bridges Senior Engineers and Software Architects, translating architectural vision into robust, maintainable implementations while influencing architectural evolution through strong technical judgment and execution.

The ideal candidate brings deep SaaS expertise, hands-on experience with AWS managed & serverless technologies and a solid understanding of distributed system design.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of complex, high-impact systems and services.
• Translate architectural blueprints into scalable, production-grade solutions.
• Design and implement microservices and APIs with a strong focus on scalability, observability, and reliability.
• Own major features or components end-to-end, including performance optimization, resilience, and cost efficiency.
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, conduct code reviews, and uphold best practices in coding, design, testing, and CI/CD.
• Collaborate closely with Architects, Product Managers, and DevOps to ensure architectural alignment and high-quality delivery.
• Build and optimize services using AWS serverless, event-driven, and container-based technologies (Lambda, ECS, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB, EventBridge, RDS).
• Ensure systems adhere to authentication, authorization, and compliance standards (OAuth2, OIDC, RBAC).
• Identify opportunities to improve system performance, scalability, and developer productivity.
• Advocate for continuous learning, experimentation, and innovation within the engineering organization.
• Maintain accountability for coding standards, engineering processes, and technical excellence.
• Use metrics and analytics to anticipate future engineering and scalability needs.
• Ensure compliance with data protection and privacy requirements, including GDPR, HIPAA, and PII best practices.
• Proactively identify and address technical debt and long-term improvement opportunities.

Education & Experience

• 8+ years of software development experience with demonstrated technical leadership in complex, distributed systems.
• Demonstrated strong hands-on experience in Java, with expertise in Spring Boot, concurrency, multi-threading, and RESTful service development.
• Proven experience with modern front-end frameworks such as React or Angular is mandatory for this full-stack role.
• Exposure to Node.js and TypeScript, including asynchronous programming and modular architecture is nice to have.
• Proven understanding of distributed systems, multi-tenancy, RBAC, and SaaS security principles.
• Hands-on experience with microservices architecture, Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS.
• Experience with observability best practices, including metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting.
• Strong knowledge of event-driven systems (Kafka, SNS/SQS, EventBridge, Kinesis).
• Experience with GraphQL federation and implementation.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Git-based workflows, and automated testing (JUnit, Jest, Playwright, etc.).
• Proven ability to design scalable, high-performance, fault-tolerant systems in multi-tenant SaaS environments.
• Familiarity with GDPR and data privacy standards is a plus.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, CDK) and modern observability stacks.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Passion for continuous learning and a strong commitment to engineering excellence.
• Comfortable leading by example and driving best practices across teams.

Who We Are

• We are a values-driven organization that encourages our employees to bring their authentic selves to work every day and empowers everyone to make a tangible impact on our products, clients, and culture. We offer a dynamic environment with driven, fun, and flexible individuals who thrive on challenge and responsibility. This is an opportunity to contribute to our culture and join a company that’s on the move.
• We live the Poppulo values each day, as they are key to everything we do.

Bring Your Best Self
We show up authentically, are self-aware and always strive to be better.

• See it. Own it. Solve it.

We proactively innovate and solve for our customers and each other. We set an example with high standards for our work. We foster a culture of learning, acknowledging our successes and our failures.

• Together We’re Better

We value and celebrate our diversity. We learn from others, respecting their expertise, and focus on building trust. That's what makes us a team.

• Named a Great Place to Work in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, we are a fast-growing global technology company, with offices in Ireland, the US, and the UK.
• Poppulo is an equal opportunity employer.
• Named a Great Place to Work in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, we are a fast-growing global technology company, with offices in Ireland, the US, and the UK.

Poppulo is an equal opportunity employer.

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Principal Software Engineer

Job Type: Full-time

Work Location: In person