Principal Developer

Clientis seeking a Principal Developer who combines hands-on software engineering, architecture, AWS cloud expertise, AI/LLM application development, technical program leadership, and people management. This person will lead engineering teams, define application architecture, engage directly with clients, and drive delivery of scalable, secure, AI-enabled solutions. Key Responsibilities People Leadership

• Manage software developers, designers, and DevOps engineers.
• Own hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, 1:1s, workload allocation, and career development.
• Mentor engineers and establish development plans and engineering best practices.

Software Architecture & Engineering

• Define application architecture, technology standards, design patterns, and engineering practices.
• Design and develop scalable APIs, backend services, and front-end applications.
• Drive reliability, security, performance, maintainability, and testability.

AI / LLM Development

• Evaluate LLM models, tools, and AI application strategies.
• Build AI-powered applications using:
• RAG
• Agentic workflows
• Prompt orchestration
• Function/tool calling
• AI/ML service integrations
• Establish responsible AI, security, reliability, latency, and cost controls.

AWS Cloud Architecture

• Define AWS application and cloud strategies.
• Architect solutions using ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, RDS, S3, and EventBridge.
• Lead IAM, secrets management, secure service-to-service communication, IaC, CI/CD, and cloud automation.

Solutions Architecture & Client Engagement

• Lead technical discovery and requirements gathering.
• Translate business requirements into scalable technical architectures.
• Present technical solutions to executives, clients, engineers, and other stakeholders.
• Develop architecture documents, technical roadmaps, and modernization strategies.
• Participate in pre-sales, proposals, solutioning, and project kickoff.

Technical Program Leadership

• Own technical execution plans and delivery milestones.
• Break complex initiatives into Jira epics, stories, tasks, and acceptance criteria.
• Lead estimation, planning, architecture, and technical review sessions.
• Coordinate developers, product teams, DevOps, data engineers, data scientists, and clients.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of software development experience, including 3+ years in senior, lead, or architect-level roles.
• Direct people-management experience, including hiring, performance management, and career development.
• Strong experience with:
• Microservices
• API design
• Event-driven architecture
• Backend development
• Modern frontend frameworks
• Hands-on experience with Python, Java, TypeScript/Node.js, Go, or similar.
• Front-end experience with React or equivalent.
• Strong AWS experience with ECS/EKS, Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, RDS, and S3.
• Experience integrating LLMs, AI/ML, RAG, agentic workflows, or AI orchestration into applications.
• Client-facing consulting or solution architecture experience.
• Experience leading technical programs using Jira and coordinating cross-functional engineering teams.
• Strong systems thinking, architecture, communication, and stakeholder-management skills., * AWS Solutions Architect Professional or Developer Associate certification.
• Terraform, AWS CDK, or other Infrastructure-as-Code experience.
• CI/CD and DevOps experience.
• Consulting/professional services or multi-client delivery background.
• Production-scale Docker/Kubernetes experience.
• Testing, observability, monitoring, and performance optimization experience.
• Federal, DoD, regulated-sector, or FedRAMP experience.