Principal Software Engineer, Popeyes

We are seeking a fully hands-on Principal Software Engineer to lead technical design, architecture, and delivery of scalable, high-performance digital solutions. This role will directly impact millions of guest interactions while supporting franchisee-facing tools and operational systems.

The ideal candidate is a highly-collaborative, business-outcome obsessed technical leader who contributes production code daily, and can move the needle on the business in their efforts. Both independently or in collaboration with Product, Design, Data, and Brand leadership, they push for and deliver innovative digital solutions that enhance guest satisfaction, drive sales growth, and modernize the Popeyes technology ecosystem.

RBI follows a 5 day, in-office work schedule to support collaboration. Candidates should be comfortable working onsite 5 days per week out of our office in Miami, FL.

What You'll Do:

• Design, develop, and deliver robust technical solutions for critical guest facing, team member facing and franchisee facing digital features.
• Lead architecture and system design decisions, creating and documenting clear and reasoned approaches.
• Contribute meaningful production code across React, Node.js, and TypeScript-based systems.
• Improve performance and scalability of services handling high transaction volumes.
• Raise the bar on engineering processes, CI/CD pipelines, automation, and developer experience.
• Elevate overall code quality through rigorous design and code reviews, mentorship, and engineering best practices.
• Lead development of new features from concept through deployment, ensuring reliability and maintainability.
• Implement strong observability and incident triage methodologies using tools such as Datadog or similar platforms.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Champion testing practices including unit, integration, and end-to-end testing.
• Mentor engineers and foster a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and technical excellence.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools effectively, including writing clear prompts, authoring instruction/context files, scoping plans for execution, and reviewing AI-generated code with the same rigor as human-written code.

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, including identifying, scoping and leading complex technical initiatives that drive significant business outcomes.
• Proven ability to independently deliver and oversee the delivery of high-quality systems under strict deadlines.
• Strong proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript, React, and Node.js.
• Experience with GraphQL (Apollo Federation preferred).
• Cloud expertise, preferably AWS (Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB) and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred).
• Experience designing and operating distributed, high-traffic systems.
• Strong understanding of relational and non-relational database systems.
• Experience with CI/CD tools (CircleCI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions) and automation pipelines.
• Familiarity with observability tools (Datadog, CloudWatch).
• Strong understanding of testing methodologies (A|B Testing and Experimentation).
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience in QSR, retail, or consumer-facing digital businesses preferred.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent industry experience.
• A passion for mentoring team members and contributing to a collaborative, high-impact team environment.
• Demonstrate fluency with AI coding assistants as a daily development tool, candidates should be comfortable discussing how they structure prompts, manage context, use plan/agent modes, and evaluate AI output.
• Experience building or contributing to agentic systems, MCP servers, or internal AI tooling is preferred

#Popeyes

Benefits at all of our global offices are focused on physical, mental and financial wellness. We offer unique and progressive benefits, including a comprehensive global paid parental leave program that supports employees as they expand their families, free telemedicine and mental wellness support.

Ready to make your next big professional move? Join us on our journey to achieve our big dream of building the most loved restaurant brands in the world. Restaurant Brands International Inc. is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant companies with nearly $45 billion in annual system-wide sales and over 32,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries and territories. RBI owns four of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands - TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, POPEYES®, and FIREHOUSE SUBS®. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for decades. Through its Restaurant Brands for Good framework, RBI is improving sustainable outcomes related to its food, the planet, and people and communities. RBI is committed to growing the TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, POPEYES® and FIREHOUSE SUBS® brands by leveraging their respective core values, employee and franchisee relationships, and long track records of community support. Each brand benefits from the global scale and shared best practices that come from ownership by Restaurant Brands International Inc. At Restaurant Brands International (RBI), we recognize that exceptional digital experiences significantly influence our guests' decisions. At Popeyes, our digital platforms directly power guest engagement, ordering, promotions, loyalty, and franchise operations across North America.