principal engineer, Next-Gen Point of Sale & Retail Systems

Starbucks Coffee Company•Seattle, WA

7d•$173,900 - $289,900•Onsite

About The Position

As a principal engineer, you will cross functionally support the engineering teams responsible for the mission‑critical platform capabilities that power Starbucks retail experiences across thousands of stores. Your charter spans cloud services, edge computing, distributed systems, observability, and Next‑Generation Point of Sale (NGPOS). You will help shape the vision and delivery of platforms that support millions of daily transactions and enable seamless, reliable in‑store experiences. This role requires a blend of strong technical leadership, cross‑functional collaboration, and the ability to operate at scale. You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, Security, SRE, Retail Operations, and senior technology leadership to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.

Requirements

10+ years in software engineering, with progressive professional software engineering experience with scope and responsibility comparable to this role.
7+ years of experience leading architecture and delivery for Retail Systems such as point of sale or PED
2+ years of experience leading delivery of architectures that span cloud and edge compute
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering, information systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Ability to convert ambiguous business needs into clear technical direction, executable plans, and measurable outcomes.
Ability to evaluate technology options and make pragmatic tradeoffs based on customer value, risk, cost, scalability, and maintainability.
Experience developing technology strategies, technical roadmaps, and architectural standards across multiple teams.
Demonstrated ability to influence across organizational boundaries, facilitate decisions, and build durable alignment.
Ability to mentor engineers, raise engineering standards, and foster a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
Strong understanding of reliability engineering, performance, telemetry, release strategies, resiliency patterns, and incident management.
Strong communication skills across technical and executive stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Hands‑on experience with Golang, GraphQL, and REST
Strong experience with distributed data sync and offline‑first architecture.
Strong background in Kubernetes, cloud‑native architecture, and fleet‑scale device management.

Responsibilities

Drive the technical vision and architecture for store-edge and cloud platform services services supporting 12k+ retail locations while shaping the roadmap for next-generation POS, ordering and Coffeehouse platform systems.
Lead architecture decisions across distributed retail systems, balancing reliability, security, performance, cost, and customer experience.
Drive technology innovation that expands capabilities while reducing complexity and technical debt.
Establish engineering standards, reusable patterns, and reference architectures across teams.
Serve as the senior technical advisor for complex cross-system challenges and strategic decisions.
Translate business and product strategy into multi-year technical roadmaps and investment plans.
Partner with product and program leaders to shape priorities, milestones, and success measures.
Provide technical leadership through design, development, deployment, and ongoing operation of major initiatives.
Identify risks, dependencies, and architectural constraints early, and drive mitigation plans.
Communicate strategy, tradeoffs, progress, and risks effectively to technical and executive stakeholders.
Champion engineering best practices for quality, automation, observability, performance, and operational excellence.
Lead resolution of complex production issues and drive long-term systemic improvements.
Design resilient architectures that support high availability, recovery, and uninterrupted store operations.
Use operational and customer insights to improve performance, reliability, and supportability.
Partner with support and sustainment teams to strengthen incident response and 24x7 operational readiness.
Integrate security, privacy, risk, and compliance requirements into architecture and delivery processes.
Promote secure-by-design principles, resilient systems, and responsible data practices.
Lead technical reviews and drive remediation of identified risks and compliance requirements.
Build alignment across engineering, product, architecture, security, operations, and external partners.
Mentor engineers and technical leaders, fostering strong technical decision-making and growth.
Create a culture of ownership, collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning.
Evaluate emerging technologies and vendor solutions to guide strategic platform decisions.
Represent NGPOS engineering across the enterprise and share best practices across teams.

Benefits

medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance, and other voluntary insurance benefits.
short-term and long-term disability
paid parental leave
family expansion reimbursement
paid vacation from date of hire
sick time (accrued at 1 hour for every 25 hours worked)
eight paid holidays
two personal days per year.
401(k) retirement plan with employer match
discounted company stock program (S.I.P.)
Starbucks equity program (Bean Stock)
incentivized emergency savings
financial well-being tools.
100% upfront tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor’s degree through Arizona State University’s online program via the Starbucks College Achievement Plan
student loan management resources
access to other educational opportunities.
backup care
DACA reimbursement.