Role Summary
As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as a technical leader and architect who defines the long-term engineering vision, drives platform-wide technical decisions, and ensures the organization’s software systems are scalable, resilient, and future-ready. This role combines deep hands-on engineering expertise with strategic influence, cross-organizational alignment, and the ability to shape how AI and advanced technologies are integrated into the engineering ecosystem. You will solve the hardest technical problems, set standards that elevate the entire engineering organization, and act as a bridge between engineering, product leadership, and business strategy.
About the Team
The team focuses on delivering high-quality software solutions through collaborative engineering efforts. Members engage in full lifecycle development, including design, implementation, testing, and continuous improvement of services and APIs. Emphasizing software quality testing and enhancement, the team integrates modern practices such as continuous integration and automated testing. They work closely with product and business partners to translate requirements into scalable, maintainable solutions. The group values technical excellence, innovation, and effective communication to meet business objectives while supporting ongoing learning and process improvements in a dynamic environment.
What You’ll Do
Define and own the long-term technical vision, architecture, and engineering roadmap for the organization’s software platform.
Serve as the senior technical authority on system design, providing guidance on architecture, technology selection, and engineering standards across multiple teams.
Lead the design of foundational platform capabilities including API gateways, event-driven architectures, data pipelines, identity/access management, and developer tooling.
Establish and evangelize best practices across the software development lifecycle: design, implementation, testing, deployment, observability, and incident response.
Drive the strategic integration of AI/ML capabilities into the engineering ecosystem, including LLM-powered features, agentic workflows, AI-assisted development, and intelligent automation.
Solve complex, ambiguous, and high-impact technical problems that span multiple teams, services, or organizational boundaries.
Drive cross-functional alignment between software engineering, platform engineering, data engineering, AI/ML, security, and product teams.
Evaluate emerging technologies, languages, frameworks, and paradigms to inform strategic decisions and maintain competitive advantage.
Mentor and develop senior and staff-level engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
Represent the engineering organization in discussions with executive leadership, partners, and clients on technical capabilities and strategy.
Define and enforce governance, compliance, and operational excellence standards across engineering teams.
Drive cost optimization, performance engineering, and reliability improvements at platform scale.
What You’ll Bring
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field. Advanced degree preferred.
12+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with at least 5 years in senior or staff-level technical leadership roles.
Mastery of multiple programming languages and paradigms including TypeScript, Python, Java, Go, Rust, or Kotlin.
Deep expertise in designing and scaling distributed systems, microservices architectures, and cloud-native platforms.
Authoritative knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP) including advanced services for compute, data, AI/ML, networking, and security.
Extensive experience with platform engineering, infrastructure-as-code, container orchestration, and DevOps/SRE practices.
Proven track record of driving technical strategy and influencing engineering direction at an organizational level.
Strong understanding of AI/ML integration patterns, LLM application architectures, and the evolving AI development landscape.
Experience leading and mentoring senior engineers and building high-performing technical teams.
Exceptional communication skills with the ability to align technical and business stakeholders on complex topics.
Strong understanding of security engineering, compliance frameworks, and operational excellence at scale.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience architecting AI-native applications, LLM-powered platforms, RAG pipelines, or agentic AI systems at enterprise scale.
Experience with MCP (Model Context Protocol), tool-layer integrations, or function-calling patterns for AI-driven systems.
Track record of defining and implementing engineering-wide standards, developer experience improvements, or internal platform products.
Experience with real-time, low-latency systems, edge computing, or globally distributed architectures.
Contributions to or leadership of open-source projects, industry standards bodies, or technical publications.
Experience with AI governance, responsible AI frameworks, and regulatory compliance (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP).
Background in financial services, healthcare, SaaS, or other domains requiring high reliability, security, and regulatory adherence.
Experience working across geographically distributed or offshore engineering teams.
Perks And Benefits Of Working With Us
Unlimited PTO.
Please ask us about our very generous parental leave, much above industry standards!.
Entrepreneurial culture where pushing limits and taking risks is everyday business.
Open communication with management and company leadership.
Small, dynamic teams = massive impact.
Medical, Dental and Vision coverage for employees.
Access to Disability & Life insurance.
Mental health and wellbeing support
Annual bonus program
Employer Stock Purchase Program (ESPP)
Yearly Team building experiences
Mentorship and sponsorship opportunities
Manager resources and support
Salary Range
US East/West Coast: $125,000 - $167,000
Disclaimer: These salary ranges are estimates and may vary based on factors including experience, education, skills, and specific geographic location.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
- 12+ years of professional software engineering experience
- At least 5 years in senior or staff-level technical leadership roles
- Mastery of multiple programming languages (TypeScript, Python, Java, Go, Rust, Kotlin)
- Deep expertise designing and scaling distributed systems and microservices architectures
- Authoritative knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
- Extensive experience with platform engineering, infrastructure-as-code, container orchestration, and DevOps/SRE practices
- Strong understanding of AI/ML integration patterns and LLM application architectures
- Experience leading and mentoring senior engineers and building high-performing technical teams
- Exceptional communication skills for aligning technical and business stakeholders
- Strong understanding of security engineering, compliance frameworks, and operational excellence at scale
- Experience driving technical strategy and influencing engineering direction at an organizational level
- Experience architecting AI-native applications, LLM-powered platforms, RAG pipelines, or agentic AI systems at enterprise scale
- Experience with MCP, tool-layer integrations, or function-calling patterns for AI systems
- Track record defining and implementing engineering-wide standards or internal platform products
- Experience with real-time, low-latency systems, edge computing, or globally distributed architectures
- Contributions to or leadership of open-source projects or technical publications
- Experience with AI governance, responsible AI frameworks, and regulatory compliance (SOC2, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP)
- Background in regulated domains (financial services, healthcare) or experience with geographically distributed/offshore teams
What We Do
Cogniify is a Bay Area-based AI execution firm that designs, builds, and deploys custom AI systems for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies. The company helps enterprises move from AI pilots to industrialized impact and enterprise-scale production, utilizing deep expertise in AI, advanced analytics, data engineering, and domain consulting.








