Principal Software Engineer, Backend

Optimal Dynamics • New York City, NY

80d

About The Position

Optimal Dynamics is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Backend, within our Platform Systems team who will lead the architecture and strategy of our platform infrastructure. The role spans internal tool Development, Infrastructure, and Security, ensuring that our engineering team can build, deploy, & operate systems with speed, safety, & confidence. As an individual contributor & technical leader, you'll define best practices, guide cross-functional initiatives, & design systems that scale with our rapidly growing platform. You'll partner closely across engineering & product teams, balancing reliability & velocity while mentoring others & raising the overall technical bar. This is a full-time, remote-friendly role open to candidates across the U.S., with the option to work from our New York City headquarters. Ready to make an impact? Join us and help redefine the logistics industry!

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, or equivalent technical experience.
• Principal-level expertise in Infrastructure & Platform Engineering.
• Proven track record of scaling cloud-native systems.
• Strong Python 3 expertise.
• Strong AWS expertise.
• Familiarity with event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar).
• Hands-on experience with IaC tools (i.e. Terraform, CloudFormation), observability, monitoring, & incident response.
• Proven track record of improving DevEx by leveling up tooling, pipelines, & automation.
• Experience improving monorepo developer workflows (Bazel, Buck, Pants).
• Knowledge of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.) and how to operationalize them.
• Experience leading security initiatives (i.e. hardening environments; building secure-by-default workflows).
• A history of mentoring engineers and shaping technical direction across teams.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with service mesh/container orchestration (Kubernetes, Istio, etc.).
• Background in transportation systems (TMS, ELD) or other complex, mission-critical domains.
• Experience implementing cost monitoring, forecasting, and optimization strategies to ensure infrastructure efficiency and cloud spend accountability.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and scale core infrastructure to ensure reliability, performance, and security.
• Build and improve tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and workflows, optimizing developer productivity and minimizing friction.
• Champion security-by-design principles, implementing controls that safeguard systems and data without slowing innovation.
• Serve as a technical leader across teams, coaching engineers, and driving alignment on platform strategy.
• Partner with product and engineering leaders, balancing speed, cost, and resilience in every decision.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Publishing Industries
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 51-100 employees