Principal Software Engineer - Digital Media

Avery Dennison • Little Rock, AR

4h • Hybrid

About The Position

We are looking for a high-impact Manager, New Initiatives/Digital Media for a new vertical within our retail technology platform. Our platform empowers grocers to modernize their physical stores through Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs), in-store printing, and digital video screen campaigns.
This is a unique hybrid role where technical strategy meets business execution. You will determine the right technology at the right time to solve critical retailer pain points. You will start as a high-level Individual Contributor, building the solutions that turn market opportunities into a scalable business, before transitioning into a Technical Lead to scale the team.
We need a strategic thinker who knows that great engineering is about making the right choices, not just writing code. You will constantly evaluate the trade-offs between integrating third-party partners to speed up time-to-market versus building bespoke solutions to create a competitive advantage. You will help us ensure our technical investments directly support our path to profitability.
This role will partner with the Commercial and Sales teams to build technical demonstrations and proofs-of-concept that bolster sales efforts as well as provide technical consultation to GTM teams to help translate complex hardware capabilities into business value.
You will be working with our core stack (Angular, .NET Core, MSSQL, Azure), but you will also be dealing with the messy reality of physical retail environments—integrating with proprietary hardware, debugging network issues in pilot stores, and solving problems on the fly.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree preferably in Computer Science, Engineering or related discipline.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven experience acting as a Lead, Principal, or Founding Engineer in a startup or high-growth environment.
• Strong proficiency in backend development (C#/.NET, Java, or Go) and frontend frameworks (Angular, React, or Vue).
• Experience with Cloud Architecture (Azure preferred, AWS/GCP acceptable).
• Experience with SQL database design and optimization.
• Willingness to travel occasionally to pilot stores to troubleshoot hardware/software implementations.

Nice To Haves

• Stack Match: Deep expertise in Angular and .NET Core Microservices.
• Infrastructure: Experience with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Docker.
• Domain: Experience in Retail Tech, IoT (Internet of Things), or Digital Signage software.
• Hardware: Experience integrating with serial devices, sockets, or proprietary hardware SDKs.

Responsibilities

• Lead the "0-to-1" Phase: Architect and develop software solutions for digital screens and ESL integrations, operating initially as a single contributor.
• Hardware Integration: Collaborate with third-party hardware vendors to integrate their devices into our centralized platform.
• Pilot Support: actively support in-store pilots. This includes troubleshooting live production issues and deploying hotfixes to ensure customer success during critical rollouts.
• Strategic Evaluation: help leadership determine the technical viability of third-party partners versus building in-house solutions, and provide the technical reality check that ensures our business goals are ambitious yet technically achievable.
• Team Scaling: As the product matures, help hire, onboard, and lead a team of engineers, establishing code quality standards, CI/CD pipelines, and development culture.

Benefits

• Autonomy: You will have significant influence over the architectural direction of a new product line.
• Impact: Your work will be visible in retail stores immediately.
• Growth: This is a leadership track role; you build the product, then you build the team.

What This Job Offers

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