Principal Software Engineer

Rockstar•New York, NY

39d•Hybrid

About The Position

Rockstar is recruiting for a New York City–based pre-Series A startup building advanced AI sales and support agents for the real estate industry. They are a team dedicated to creating a reliable, scalable foundation that supports rapid growth, drives customer adoption, and accelerates the long-term success of their AI agents. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will set the technical direction and lead the development of the core platform spanning real-time communication, automation, and large-scale AI-driven workflows. You'll architect and deliver high-impact systems, guide engineering best practices, and collaborate closely with product, AI, and go-to-market teams to ensure the technology consistently delivers measurable value. Your work will shape a reliable, scalable foundation that supports rapid growth, drives customer adoption, and accelerates the long-term success of the AI agents.

Requirements

9+ years experience as a software engineer building and shipping production quality code
Experience with open source languages such as Python and TypeScript
Experience with writing and shipping reliable, scalable, and efficient code, with an emphasis on long-term maintainability, in partnership with all appropriate reviewers, in manageable pieces with relevant documentation and test plans
Experience with software design and architecture
Experience with AI coding tools like Cursor and Claude Code
Role is flexible/hybrid
Fluency in English is required

Nice To Haves

Experience writing code in Python
Experience writing code in React.js
Experience with AWS technologies
Client/partner-facing and/or experience communicating to an audience
Experience working in highly collaborative environments
Experience working on multi-person code bases including open source or personal projects
Experience contributing to developer and platform documentation

Responsibilities

Own and lead the design, development, and deployment of major product features across the AI-driven lead management stack.
Make key technical decisions on architecture, infrastructure, and scaling.
Drive rapid iteration and experimentation: ship fast, learn fast, and iterate.
Collaborate directly with founders to shape product direction and technical strategy.
Debug and solve problems across the stack, no "not my job" mentality.
Set the engineering bar: code quality, testing, reviews, and best practices.
Build and manage strong working relationships with technical counterparts. Mentor and share knowledge with peers, creating a positive atmosphere amongst the team.
Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback while quickly actioning feedback from code reviews conducted of your code.
Influence decision-making through presentation of data-centric business topics.