Principal Software Engineer (Platform)

Role Overview

As a Principal Software Engineer (Platform) at Vanta, you’ll define and drive the organization’s technical strategy for frontend development. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll set standards and patterns, improve operational excellence, and mentor engineers across the company.

Key Missions

• Define and lead the technical strategy for frontend development across the organization, establishing scalable patterns and standards.
• Establish best practices for data-layer architecture, state management, testing frameworks, and system design organization.
• Collaborate with the AI Developer Experience team to build advanced AI tools and agentic feedback loops for AI-generated frontend code.

Responsibilities

• Write production code while driving organization-wide technical initiatives.
• Improve developer experience by building platforms and tools for other developers (e.g., consumable APIs).
• Mentor engineers and influence peers and leadership through clear communication.
• Balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution, maintaining product velocity, quality, and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Expert-level proficiency in JavaScript and deep experience with modern frontend technologies.
• Experience with GraphQL and building scalable data architectures for web applications.
• Strong communication skills to influence leadership and collaborate across teams.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and identify high-leverage work; know when to delegate versus embed deeply.
• Track record of driving technical change and influencing engineering strategy.
• Broad technical knowledge across testing, build systems, accessibility, and internationalization/localization.
• Open to using AI to amplify skills and strengthen work (with responsible judgment).

Nice-to-haves

• Prior experience leading organization-wide technical initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain quality and velocity during major technical changes.