Principal Software Engineer (Hybrid)

Role Overview

Principal Engineer at 8th Light, a go-to technologist and strategist working with clients across high-impact software engagements.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship production-grade platforms (reusable foundations, tools, infrastructure, and workflows) that help teams move faster and more reliably.
• Take AI/agentic systems from prototype to production with strong focus on infrastructure, authentication, and observability.
• Lead architecture-level delivery addressing scalability, security, reliability, performance, maintainability, and observability.
• Modernize and replatform legacy systems to meet short- and long-term business needs.
• Facilitate alignment across technical and non-technical stakeholders through ambiguity and complexity.
• Provide mentorship and support at scale, improving team practices through knowledge sharing.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to balance technical considerations with product and user needs.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience with long-term repeated success across a variety of projects.
• Trusted expert and leader who guides ambiguous initiatives and architects scalable solutions.
• Demonstrated consulting acumen combined with deep technical expertise and product thinking.
• Experience across multiple languages/frameworks and production-grade delivery.

Technical Experience (examples mentioned)

• Backend/Full-stack: Java, C#/.NET, Python, Go, Ruby, Scala, R
• Frontend: TypeScript, JavaScript, React
• Data/Query: SQL
• AI/ML & Agentic systems: recommendation engines, NLP, computer vision, predictive analytics, RAG pipelines, agents

Nice to Have

• Track record of experimenting with AI development tools and translating experimentation into faster, higher-quality delivery.