Principal Engineer - eCommerce, Digital, & Product Launch

Minted•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

Minted is looking for a passionate Principal Engineer who will join us in building our e-commerce and digital experiences, as well as our artist community and product launch platforms. This role is pivotal in shaping the next generation of our platforms as we move from a monolithic to a microservices architecture. You will use your deep understanding of e-commerce, digital, and marketplace technologies to lead us in both defining and executing on short and mid-term strategy, while also driving a broad spectrum of architecture, design, and vendor decisions that will define and evolve mid to long-term strategies â€“ while ensuring quality, timely delivery of the roadmap, and operational stability of the experiences. As a technical leader, you will drive innovation, mentor technical team members, and ensure seamless collaboration across engineering, product, and leadership teams to achieve strategic objectives. At Minted engineering, we marry design with technology to deliver unique products that are beautiful and co-created by our artist community and our customers. Our engineers take on multiple roles and challenges not defined by titles, and we have a strong culture of collaboration and mentorship. We are a metrics-driven organization, and we work hard to make sure every project is measurably impactful. We strive to maintain the balance between building out new features and scaling our platform, while staying agile in a fast-moving environment.Artists shape culture. They spark conversation, create connection, and bring beauty into the world. Minted is where they come together to reach further. Our marketplace empowers a thriving community of independent artists to sell and scale their work. We nurture self-expression, cultivate community, and bring the best in visual art to a global audience. Weâ€™re building a new way to discover the worldâ€™s best creative talent. Weâ€™re here for the emerging talent ready to take off, the local favorites ready to grow, and the established artists ready to dream bigger. At Minted, our people donâ€™t just believe in the power of artâ€“we live it. We have our finger on the pulse of whatâ€™s new and now. Weâ€™re obsessed with great design, art, and interiors. Weâ€™re in galleries, at fairs, and constantly finding inspiration online. We seek undiscovered talent that deserves to stand up and stand out. We connect with artists that have something to say, and we collaborate to amplify their work. The Minted communityâ€™s art, stationery, and textiles products have reached over 75 million homes worldwide. Our marketplace brings the best in independent design to consumers everywhere. We recognize the challenges independent artists face, and we leverage our resources to level the playing field and create a platform that gives artists the freedom to develop their craft and grow their business. We are headquartered in San Francisco, CA and currently employ 350+ full-time employees, plus additional temporary workers during the holiday season. We have raised over $300M from top-tier investors including Benchmark Capital, T. Rowe Price, Permira, Ridge Ventures, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Norwest Venture Partners. Angel investors include Marissa Mayer, Jeremy Stoppelman, Julia & Kevin Hartz, Yishan Wong, and more.

Requirements

A technical expert in SOA & distributed system development, with extensive experience in designing and implementing scalable experiences, APIs, and platforms in a high-traffic e-commerce environment, and a working fluency with AI/LLM-powered tooling.
An architectural expert with a deep understanding of software architecture principles, including microservices, MFEs, RESTful APIs, message queues, and caching strategies.
A technical leader with proven ability to lead technical initiatives, find the right solutions, influence decision-making, and drive consensus across teams.
A problem solver, with strong analytical skills and a pragmatic approach to balancing technical objectives with business requirements, whether that's classic distributed systems trade-offs or the newer cost/quality/latency triangle of AI-powered features.
A communicator with excellent verbal and written communication skills, and the ability to both articulate and present complex technical concepts to diverse audiences in a clear and concise manner.
15+ years of professional software development experience
10+ years in technical leadership roles
3+ years in Architect, Principal Engineer, or Solution Architect level roles
Strong programming skills in multiple programming languages, cloud infra, databases, caching, containers, CI/CD tools, and AI-assisted development tooling
Extensive experience designing, building, and migrating complex software systems
The ability to understand business problems and synthesize the patterns and designs that accurately model them
A solid understanding of reliability and scalability issues with distributed systems on unreliable hardware and/or software
Experience working in a fast-paced, Agile Scrum environment

Nice To Haves

Experience with ReactJS, Python, NodeJS, PHP, or GoLang
Experience with Amazon Web Services, Docker & Kubernetes
Experience with Analytics & Experimentation tools
Experience integrating AI/LLM capabilities into products using AI Platforms or LLM API providers (e.g. Anthropic, OpenAI, AWS Bedrock), including an understanding of prompt engineering, model selection, context-window constraints, and the operational and cost implications of running AI features
Experience with e-commerce CMS, Search & PIM, including AI-powered features

Responsibilities

Provide architectural leadership in designing and evolving the architecture of Minted's platform, focusing on scalability, performance, observability, and maintainability.
Plan and help to implement major technical projects in collaboration with the Engineering teams, Product Management, stakeholders, and leadership.
Define and implement technical strategies aligned with Minted's business objectives, leveraging industry best practices and emerging technologies, including the pragmatic adoption of AI/LLM capabilities where they create measurable product or productivity value.
Lead the design, implementation, and maintenance of robust APIs and MFEs that serve as the backbone and user-facing experience of Minted's services, ensuring seamless integration across various applications and vendor platforms.
Drive build vs buy decisions on key components of our stack, such as CMS, marketing, and analytics tooling.
Solve hard problems while also mentoring engineers, conducting code reviews, and fostering a culture of technical excellence and collaboration across the teams.
Be a force for continuous improvement by role modeling best-in-class engineering, mentoring those around you, and championing initiatives that raise the bar on Minted engineering practices across teams, from better processes and tooling to the thoughtful adoption of AI code assistants (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code) with appropriate guardrails.