Principal Software Engineer

About this role

Principal Software Engineer
About Us:
At Fullbay, our mission is simple — to create safer roads for our families and yours. As leaders in the heavy-duty repair industry, we power shops with technology that helps them run smarter and more efficiently. As an AI-First company, we invite artificial intelligence to eliminate friction, spark innovation, and drive efficiencies in every conversation— for our teams and our customers.
Position Overview:
The Principal Software Engineer is a force-multiplier and technical leader who drives innovation, establishes best practices, and solves complex problems across Fullbay's SaaS platform helping independent mechanics manage their businesses. You'll combine exceptional technical depth with the breadth of experience needed to tackle any challenge—from architecting scalable distributed systems to mentoring engineers and influencing organizational strategy. This role requires someone who can quickly prototype solutions, deliver proof-of- concepts with new technologies, and turn big ideas into reality while maintaining production excellence.
You'll work as part of the Principal Engineers team—a unified group that coordinates cross-domain architectural decisions, establishes technical standards, and provides strategic guidance across the organization. While you'll be assigned to specific domain teams, your primary responsibility is organizational impact, not embedding in day-to-day execution.
What Sets You Apart
You're not just technically excellent—you're a teacher, mentor, and role model who helps elevate the team's capabilities. You have deep product knowledge and can effectively troubleshoot complex issues. When uncertain, you know how to debug systematically to get to the root cause. You're comfortable with greenfield projects and navigating ambiguity. You think strategically about long-term architecture while maintaining focus on delivering practical business value. You can communicate effectively with different audiences—adjusting your message for leadership, peers, and junior engineers. You stay current with industry practices and thoughtfully evaluate how new techniques could improve our products. You demonstrate ownership of production systems, taking responsibility for outcomes and fostering a culture
focused on learning and improvement. You're willing to drive consensus through ADRs and documentation rather than dictating solutions.
Primary Duties & Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership & Innovation

• Design and implement complex, high-impact features that significantly increase business value and advance Fullbay's capabilities

• Drive architectural decisions that simplify implementations, improve performance, and establish patterns for the entire engineering organization

• Investigate and evaluate new technologies, establish the technical platform, and define the stack

• Quickly prototype solutions and deliver proof-of-concepts that turn speculative ideas into concrete implementations

• Own production excellence—proactively identify issues, establish monitoring standards, and drive performance, scale, and availability goals

• Cross-Organizational Impact

• Work with principal engineers as a unified team to coordinate on technical initiatives spanning multiple domains

• Establish and promote best practices for software development, including coding standards, system design patterns, and integration approaches

• Lead Architecture Decision Record (ADR) processes and ensure alignment on technical standards

• Serve as technical advisor to senior leadership—communicate development goals, progress, and strategic direction

• Collaborate with the dev lead to define entry/exit criteria for how Product, QA, and Development teams work together, including checkpoints and release cadence

• Mentorship & Team Development

• Train engineers across the organization on modern programming practices, platform capabilities, and effective use of tools

• Mentor other engineers through code reviews, pairing sessions, and formal training

• Establish code review standards, branching strategies, and software development methodologies

• Serve as the "go-to" expert for complex technical challenges across multiple teams

• Build trust and rapport with fellow principal engineers to amplify collective impact

• Platform & Process Excellence

• Work with the Internal Developer Platform to improve developer experience and productivity

• Establish metrics and standards for performance, scale, and availability

• Evaluate and integrate third-party technologies to enhance the Fullbay stack

• Define processes and frameworks for how engineering work happens across the organization

• Contribute to FinOps initiatives and AWS cost optimization strategies

• Work with 3d party applications and companies to add to our Fullbay stack for best results

• Adheres to all confidentiality and compliance regulations.

• Performs other duties as assigned.

Our Technical Environment

• Frontend: TypeScript, React (modern patterns with hooks), Module Federation for micro-frontends

• Backend: Java (Quarkus, SnapStart optimization), Node.js/TypeScript, Go

• AWS Services: Lambda (with Lambda resolvers for AppSync), Fargate, AppSync (GraphQL APIs with VTL and JavaScript resolvers), DynamoDB, EventBridge, Step Functions, API Gateway, CloudFront, WAF

• Architecture: Microservices, event-driven systems, serverless-first approach

• Tools: GitHub Enterprise, Terraform for Infrastructure as Code, AI-enhanced development (Claude Code)

Minimum Education & Work Experience:

• 10-15 years of experience in software design and development

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience

• Proven ability to design and implement scalable, distributed systems

• Strong communication skills with ability to influence technical decisions across the organization

• Experience working collaboratively with Product Management and QA teams

Key Skills and Qualifications:

• Modern…