Principal Engineer, New Products

PetDesk

4d•$180,000 - $200,000

About The Position

The Principal Engineer, New Products is a senior technical leadership role responsible for defining the system design vision and architecture for a new business line. The role translates business requirements into technical decisions and aligns teams around a common direction. It provides technical leadership to a contractor team of three from the outset, with the possibility of supporting one or two additional small teams over time. The position works closely with Product, Engineering, Operations, and business leaders and is internally focused, with no external, commercial, or partner-facing work. This is a hands-on role that scales impact through process, automation, and AI-assisted development rather than increased headcount. The engineer balances strategic architecture with pragmatic execution, focusing on quality, performance, timely delivery, and long-term maintainability. The role uses AI coding agents such as Claude Code daily and establishes standards for how teams use them. The Principal Engineer leads the platform’s technical vision, architecture, and long-term engineering strategy; designs systems and integrations across third-party platforms; and oversees the delivery of key initiatives. The position also provides project-level technical guidance, manages risks, and evaluates technologies and industry trends to inform the roadmap.

Requirements

10 or more years of software engineering experience, including 3 or more years at Staff or Principal level or equivalent technical leadership.
Hands-on experience with C#/.NET and cloud-native development, including building proofs of concept.
Experience designing distributed systems, APIs, and third-party integrations at scale.
Strong architecture skills, including event-driven design, data modeling, and pragmatic tradeoffs between short-term needs and long-term scalability.
Ability to turn business requirements into a clear system design and delivery plan.
Ability to align multiple teams without formal authority and lead a small team, including contractors, through standards and process.
Experience building a new product or system from scratch.
Daily hands-on use of AI coding agents such as Claude Code, and ability to explain how they affect design, development, and review.

Nice To Haves

Experience designing distributed systems, APIs, and third-party integrations in healthcare, veterinary technology, fintech, or SaaS.

Responsibilities

Lead the technical vision, architecture, and long-term engineering strategy for the platform.
Make architectural decisions that balance speed, flexibility, maintainability, and long-term platform health.
Design and evolve a reliable, observable platform that supports integrations with dozens of third-party systems, including pharmaceutical manufacturers and clinic systems.
Architect data pipelines, APIs, and services for data exchange among veterinary clinics, pet owners, drug manufacturers, and industry partners.
Translate business requirements and customer needs into scalable technical solutions that inform product roadmap planning and prioritization.
Scale the platform and teams through process, automation, and AI-assisted development; streamline processes, reduce manual effort, and improve reliability and throughput.
Oversee end-to-end technical execution of key initiatives, including timelines, dependencies, cross-functional coordination, and delivery quality.
Conduct architecture reviews and hands-on technical guidance sessions, providing project-level oversight for complex initiatives spanning multiple teams and systems.
Set technical standards and deliverables for a contractor team, with potential to support one or two additional small teams.
Build hands-on with AI coding agents such as Claude Code and set standards for their use across teams.
Identify and mitigate technical risks involving third-party integrations, data quality, platform scalability, and system performance.
Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends in integrations, data platforms, APIs, and distributed systems to inform the technical roadmap.