Principal Engineer, Technology

Raymond James • Saint Petersburg, FL

13h • Hybrid

About The Position

As part of the Wealth Management technology team, the Principal Engineer owns and leads the technical architecture and development of on-premises and cloud applications and data platforms. This is a hands-on technical leadership role: the engineer sets technical direction, writes production-ready code alongside the team, leads proofs of concept to validate technologies and approaches, and mentors senior and junior engineers. The role supports enterprise-scale solutions in a collaborative environment and is based with the core team in St. Petersburg, Florida, following a hybrid work model that expects three days in the office each week.

The Principal Engineer is expected to bring substantial technical leadership, analytical, and problem-solving skills to a fast-paced enterprise technology environment, supporting strategic development initiatives as well as production stability. The role requires clear written and oral communication of complex technical concepts, architectural decisions, and trade-offs to technical and non-technical audiences.

The position works across on-premises and external cloud environments, developing cloud-native microservices, REST APIs, event-driven systems, and data pipelines. It also leads platform engineering, production issue resolution, technology evaluation, delivery practices, and technical planning, while collaborating with business partners, product owners, technology teams, vendors, and support teams. Occasional non-standard shifts, nights or weekends, and on-call responsibilities may be required.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Information Science.
• 10 to 15 years of general work experience.
• Proven track record of owning and leading technical architecture and hands-on development for enterprise-scale systems, including leading proofs of concept and guiding solutions from concept to production.
• Strong experience with Java, Spring Boot, REST APIs, microservices, ORM/Hibernate, and distributed systems.
• Experience with Python programming.
• Strong experience with AWS services such as EKS, MSK, S3, EMR, Redshift, Glue, MWAA/Airflow, IAM, and CloudWatch.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, cloud-native architecture, and Infrastructure as Code using Terraform.
• Experience with Apache Kafka or Confluent Kafka and event-driven architectures.
• Experience building scalable data pipelines, ETL/ELT solutions, Spark-based processing, and distributed data platforms.
• Experience with Oracle, Redshift, SQL, or similar database platforms.
• Strong understanding of application scalability, resiliency, security, performance, high availability, and disaster recovery.
• Experience with CI/CD and DevOps tools such as Jenkins, Git, Azure DevOps/TFS, and SonarQube.
• Experience with monitoring and APM tools such as Datadog, Dynatrace, CloudWatch, and Splunk.
• Ability to provide technical direction and mentor senior and junior engineers.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with business partners, product owners, technology teams, vendors, and support teams.
• Ability to identify and understand complex technical issues, problems, and opportunities, compare data from different sources, and draw conclusions.
• Ability to communicate complex technical information and ideas to audiences ranging from engineering teams to senior leadership in a way that engages them and supports understanding and retention.
• Ability to choose courses of action and develop solutions consistent with available facts, constraints, and probable consequences.
• Ability to balance long-term architectural goals with near-term delivery commitments and production support needs.
• Ability to influence technical direction and build consensus across teams, often without direct authority.
• Expert-level technical and professional skill or knowledge in position-related areas, and ability to remain current with developments and trends in areas of expertise.
• Ability to develop and use collaborative relationships to accomplish work goals.
• Ability to prioritize internal and external client needs and develop and sustain productive client relationships.
• Willingness and ability to occasionally work non-standard shifts, including nights and/or weekends, and/or fulfill on-call responsibilities.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in financial services or large-scale enterprise technology environments is preferred.
• Experience using AI-assisted productivity tools such as GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools for documentation, analysis, and development.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead end-to-end technical architecture, design, and development of scalable, highly available, and secure solutions across on-premises and external cloud environments.
• Write high-quality, production-ready code alongside the team; conduct code and design reviews; and establish engineering standards and best practices.
• Lead proofs of concept and prototypes to validate technologies and design approaches, and turn successful outcomes into reusable solution patterns and reference architectures.
• Understand end-to-end data, application, and service requirements and translate them into solution designs and technical roadmaps supporting strategic development initiatives.
• Architect and build cloud-native microservices and REST APIs, Kafka-based event-driven systems, and scalable ETL/ELT data pipelines using Spark and AWS data services.
• Design, engineer, and build core platform capabilities, including networking, security, logging, monitoring, and persistent storage.
• Ensure solutions meet non-functional requirements for scalability, resiliency, security, performance, high availability, and disaster recovery; proactively plan platform and application capacity, monitoring, and scaling.
• Lead resolution of complex production issues, perform root cause analysis, and drive long-term fixes and observability improvements.
• Research, evaluate, and recommend technologies, tools, and frameworks for private and public cloud environments, weighing cost, performance, and security within technical and budgetary constraints.
• Drive CI/CD, DevOps, and Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform to improve delivery speed, quality, and consistency.
• Provide technical direction and mentorship to senior and junior engineers, fostering engineering excellence, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Lead technical planning and execution within Agile or Waterfall development lifecycles, including daily stand-ups, biweekly sprint planning, estimation, and design reviews.
• Collaborate with business partners, product owners, technology teams, vendors, and support teams to align on requirements, priorities, and solutions, and communicate across departments to solve problems.
• Occasionally work non-standard shifts, including nights and/or weekends, and/or fulfill on-call responsibilities.
• Perform other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits may be available.
• Life insurance may be available.
• Critical illness insurance and accident insurance may be available.
• Disability benefits may be available.
• Retirement savings may be available.
• Paid time off, including vacation, holidays, and sick leave, may be available.
• Parental leave may be available.
• Additional compensation may include cash or equity, discretionary bonuses, or commissions.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal