Principal Engineer

Northwoods•Dublin, OH

About The Position

Northwoods builds software that empowers Health and Human Services professionals to better serve vulnerable families. We are hiring a Principal Engineer to carry dual accountability: deliver Traverse product features end-to-end, and co-build the agentic engineering framework that continuously raises the standard for how software gets built here. This is a technically authoritative, principal-level role on a high-autonomy engineering team where your decisions set the standard and your output shapes the system. You will define the technical approach, execute against it, and course-correct independently. AI-forward development is not a tool you reach for occasionally; it is the operating model for everything you build and every process you improve.

Requirements

8+ years of professional software development experience, with demonstrated delivery at principal or staff level in a SaaS product environment
Full-stack proficiency across a modern web stack; direct experience with Ruby on Rails, React/TypeScript, and PostgreSQL is highly valued
Expert-level, hands-on AI-assisted development — not theoretical familiarity, but shipped production work built using agentic tooling (Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalent)
Demonstrated ability to design systems from scratch, reason about architectural tradeoffs, and communicate decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Strong automated testing ownership: unit, integration, and end-to-end — you build tests as part of delivery, not after
Must be authorized to work in the U.S.

Nice To Haves

Expert-level AI-assisted development as a daily working practice — you run agentic workflows, manage context deliberately, and use Claude Code, Cursor, or equivalent to ship production work at accelerated pace
Full-stack range without hard gaps — you are as comfortable in a Rails controller and PostgreSQL schema as you are in a React component and a CI pipeline
Strong system design instincts — you can architect a feature or service from scratch, reason about tradeoffs, and explain decisions clearly to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders
A high bar for code quality that you hold for yourself and others — clean code, SOLID principles, test-first thinking, and security-by-default are how you work, not aspirations
Demonstrated ownership of automated testing end-to-end — unit, integration, and E2E coverage is part of your definition of done, built and owned by the engineer who wrote the feature
A builder's mindset about engineering systems — you don't just follow the SDLC, you improve it; writing runbooks, automating processes, and raising the baseline is work you seek out
High autonomy and low need for direction — given a problem, you define the approach, execute, and surface blockers early rather than waiting for a manager to unblock you
Strong written communication — your design docs, code review comments, and architecture decisions are clear, concise, and useful to the person who wasn't in the room when you made them
Comfort operating in a flat, high-trust team where peer accountability is the norm and everyone's work is visible
Prior experience building components of an agentic SDLC: automated test generation, AI-assisted code review, prompt engineering standards, or agentic deployment automation
Experience with Domain-Driven Design (DDD) and applying it to a complex, multi-tenant SaaS domain
Familiarity with advanced AI development patterns: context engineering, multi-step prompting, multi-agent orchestration
Familiarity with AWS application-layer services at the level of a confident operator (not infrastructure ownership, but not helpless either)
Experience in the Health and Human Services, government tech, or similarly regulated vertical SaaS domain

Responsibilities

Own and deliver Traverse product features end-to-end — from technical design through implementation, automated testing, deployment, and production operation — with full accountability for quality at every stage
Set and enforce the code quality bar for the team: architecture decisions, design patterns, code review standards, and security-by-default practices that every engineer on the team follows
Build and continuously improve the agentic engineering framework — automated test generation pipelines, AI-assisted code review workflows, prompt engineering standards, and agentic workflow runbooks that make the whole team faster
Drive AI-forward engineering maturity — identify the next automation opportunity, write the runbook, ship it; this is ongoing delivery work, not a side project
Mentor and technically develop the engineers on the team through pairing, code review, and direct, actionable feedback
Operate with minimal supervision — define the technical approach, execute against it, and course-correct independently without waiting for direction

Benefits

Medical (includes H.S.A. option with employer contribution), dental, and vision insurance
Short- and long-term disability
Company paid basic life insurance
401(k) with 4% company match and immediate vesting
Free financial education and consultation
Wellness program that helps you earn lower premiums
Robust EAP program that includes free therapy sessions, lifestyle coaching, legal/ID theft services, and more
12 weeks fully paid parental leave
Up to $5,000 adoption fee reimbursement
$500 wellness reimbursement after 60 days of employment
Generous PTO policy and 10 company paid holidays
Company paid cell phone plan