Principal Software Engineer – Platform & Architecture

Life Science Connect•Horsham Township, PA

About The Position

Life Science Connect is seeking a Principal Software Engineer – Platform & Architecture to serve as the technical authority and hands-on engineering leader for our product engineering organization. This role is accountable for the architecture, engineering standards, and execution of a new suite of digital platforms, including a critical internal company intelligence system. Reporting directly to the CTO, you will be a core member of the Technology Leadership Team and will play a foundational role in defining how our systems are designed, built, scaled, and maintained. While this is a hands-on role, your primary responsibility is technical leadership and architectural ownership, ensuring that our platforms are secure, resilient, performant, and aligned with business objectives.

Requirements

7+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, including significant experience as a technical lead, architect, staff, or principal engineer.
Proven experience owning the architecture of complex, production-grade web platforms.
Expert-level proficiency with Next.js and React, and deep understanding of modern JavaScript and RESTful APIs.
Strong experience designing and operating cloud-based architectures.
Deep, hands-on experience architecting solutions that integrate with a headless CMS, specifically Optimizely.
Demonstrated ability to set and enforce engineering standards across teams.
Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction in a distributed environment.
Comfortable making high-impact technical decisions and being accountable for the outcomes.
Ability to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
Strong judgment in balancing speed, quality, and long-term sustainability.
Passion for building platforms that solve real-world problems and drive measurable value.
This role is not a fit for candidates seeking a primarily individual-contributor position without architectural ownership or leadership accountability.

Nice To Haves

Experience building custom administrative or internal tooling layers is a strong plus.

Responsibilities

Technical Architecture & Platform Design
Own the end-to-end technical architecture for our product platforms, including Next.js and React-based applications.
Make and defend key architectural decisions related to scalability, performance, security, and maintainability.
Design systems that support both internal intelligence platforms and customer-facing products.
Evaluate tradeoffs and guide build-vs-buy decisions in partnership with the CTO and product leadership.
Engineering Standards & Quality
Define and enforce engineering standards across the organization, including code quality, testing, security, and performance.
Establish and continuously improve our development lifecycle, including:
Version control and branching strategies
CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Vercel)
Deployment and release processes
Set a clear definition of “production-ready” and ensure teams consistently meet that bar.
Technical Leadership & Mentorship
Serve as the most senior technical leader for product engineering initiatives.
Lead architecture reviews and technical design discussions.
Mentor, coach, and empower a distributed team of full-time and elastic engineering resources, partnering with our Data organization as well, with a focus on raising technical rigor and decision-making capability.
Lead by example through hands-on contribution to critical parts of the codebase.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner closely with Product, DevOps, Data, and Delivery teams to translate business needs into durable technical solutions.
Work directly with integration partners and internal stakeholders to ensure alignment on architecture and execution.
Act as a trusted technical advisor to non-engineering leaders.
Product Delivery & Business Impact
Own the full-stack development lifecycle for key platforms, from concept through launch and iteration.
Ensure delivery timelines are met while maintaining high standards of quality and reliability.
Measure success not just by shipped code, but by business outcomes and platform adoption.