Principal Consultant - Principal Software Engineer

Torq • Plano, TX

15h

About The Position

Torq works with forward-thinking organizations to design and deliver modern, scalable software solutions. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead these efforts. This role is for a deeply technical leader who excels at solving high-impact problems, scaling systems, and guiding engineering teams through hands-on leadership. The ideal candidate combines architectural depth, technical breadth, and the ability to mentor and influence other engineers, amplifying their impact through teams, design patterns, strategic guidance, and strong technical leadership.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Demonstrated leadership of teams or multiple teams — setting direction, coaching others, and owning outcomes
• Deep experience building and operating distributed systems, microservices, or high-scale platforms
• Expertise in modern cloud environments — AWS, Azure, or GCP — and cloud-native design patterns
• Strong working knowledge of containerization, orchestration, and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD)
• Proven experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs, GraphQL, and service-layer architectures
• Experience with backend languages like Python, Java, Node.js, or .NET — and the ability to pick up new stacks
• Comfort working in agile environments with cross-functional teams
• Consulting mindset: you bring clarity to chaos, ask the right questions, and know how to deliver value
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills — you influence through clarity, not control

Nice To Haves

• Designing real-time, event-driven, or data-intensive systems
• Infrastructure-as-Code tools (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi)
• Strong understanding of software reliability engineering (SRE) practices — observability, alerting, incident response
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g. Copilot, Claude, Cursor)
• Open-source contributions or experience building internal frameworks / libraries
• Prior consulting or pre-sales engineering experience — especially with complex stakeholder environments
• Experience influencing technical roadmaps, org-wide standards, or platform strategy

Responsibilities

• Define and lead technical direction across complex systems, projects, or client engagements
• Architect scalable, fault-tolerant solutions that solve real business problems
• Work hands-on with modern cloud-native technologies — AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, container orchestration, and more
• Design and deliver APIs and service architectures that enable fast, stable delivery and long-term maintainability
• Set and uphold high engineering standards — reliability, testability, performance, and security
• Guide multiple teams through ambiguous technical challenges and trade-offs
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners (product, design, business) to align engineering with business needs
• Coach, mentor, and elevate other engineers — sharing knowledge and driving best practices
• Act as a trusted advisor for clients — bringing credibility, clarity, and calm to high-stakes situations
• Identify emerging technologies and evaluate their application in real-world systems
• Occasionally prototype ideas or lead technical spikes to de-risk and accelerate delivery

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• Unlimited PTO
• Best-in-class health/vision/dental benefits
• Generous 401K options
• Paid Parental Leave
• Opportunity to be a key player at a highly reputable, fast-growing consulting firm
• High degree of internal mobility and diverse project opportunities

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees