Principal Software Development Engineer

Responsibilities:

• Advocate for Clearwater’s technical vision, architecture strategy, and established standards for software systems.
• Define and evolve architectural principles, patterns, and best practices across teams and platforms.
• Lead the design of scalable, secure, and reliable software systems supporting enterprise and client needs.
• Partner with engineering and product leaders to align architecture with business priorities and roadmap objectives.
• Identify architectural risks, technical debt, and systemic blockers, and drive plans to address them.
• Establish best practices and processes that improve software design, execution, scalability, and cross-team collaboration.
• Create alignment across multiple teams toward common architecture standards, integration patterns, and engineering best practices.
• Influence the prioritization of the overall Clearwater roadmap through architectural insight and technical strategy.
• Lead high-priority and complex cross-functional initiatives requiring significant architectural design and coordination.
• Review and guide system designs, technical decisions, and implementation approaches across teams.
• Model and encourage a culture of technical excellence, communication, and collaboration within teams, divisions, and the broader department.
• Serve as a trusted mentor and technical advisor to engineers, technical leads, and other architects at all levels.
• Stay current with emerging technologies and evaluate their applicability to Clearwater’s platforms and strategic direction.
• Any other reasonable activity required by management.

Required Skills:

• Exceptional architectural leadership and technical mentorship skills.
• Deep enthusiasm for software engineering in a software-as-a-service company.
• Strong focus on designing solutions that drive client satisfaction and business value.
• Exceptional collaboration and teamwork skills across engineering, product, and business stakeholders.
• Ability to manage time effectively and deliver high-quality results on schedule.
• Commitment to continuous learning, innovation, and improvement.
• Exceptional analytical and systems-thinking skills.
• Strong computer skills, including proficiency in Microsoft Office.
• Excellent attention to detail and strong technical documentation skills.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong organizational, interpersonal, and stakeholder management skills.
• Exceptional problem-solving abilities.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, distributed systems, cloud-native design, and system integration.
• Ability to influence technical decisions without direct authority and build alignment across teams.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, related field, or comparable practical experience.
• 15+ years of enterprise software development experience using modern programming languages such as Java, Python, or JavaScript.
• Significant experience designing and implementing distributed systems using microservices architecture.
• Strong cloud expertise, including designing systems on AWS and driving cloud cost optimization.
• Strong coding skills, especially in Java and Python.
• Strong software and system design skills.
• Experience defining architecture for large-scale, enterprise-grade applications.
• Experience leading cross-team architectural initiatives and guiding technical direction across multiple products or platforms.