Principal Software Engineer

ATPCO•Herndon, VA

2d•$152,000 - $183,000•Remote

About The Position

Looking to redefine how the airline industry prices and sells products at a global scale? This is not just another engineering role—this is your opportunity to architect and build a next-generation pricing engine that will power airline retailing across the globe. At ATPCO, you’ll join a newly formed Pricing Platform Team (est. 2024) with a bold mission: to create a highly scalable, cost-efficient, and intelligent pricing platform capable of managing 200M+ fares across 160+ countries. This platform will shape how airlines distribute and optimize their products in real time. As a Principal Software Engineer, you won’t just contribute—you’ll lead from the front, solving some of the hardest technical challenges in distributed systems, performance engineering, and large-scale data processing. Want to redefine how the airline industry prices and sells products at global scale? This role is your chance to shape and extend the pricing engine that powers airline retailing around the world. You’ll join ATPCO’s Pricing Platform Team, formed in 2024 to own a highly scalable, cost-efficient, and intelligent pricing platform that manages 200M+ fares across 160+ countries. The engine is built and running; the mission now is to evolve it to support new use cases and shape how airlines distribute and optimize their products in real time. As a Principal Software Engineer, you’ll lead from the front. You’ll set technical direction on some of the hardest problems in distributed systems, performance engineering, and large-scale data processing, and you’ll spend most of your time building.

Requirements

Systems programming expertise: expert-level C and Rust. Go or Python are a plus.
A love of the hard stuff: complex algorithms, data structures, and systems design, for their own sake and not just as a means to ship a feature.
Linux depth: a deep understanding of Linux systems, performance, and resource management.
Distributed systems at scale: proven experience building and operating fault-tolerant distributed systems in production.
A scientific approach: you work through complex, ambiguous problems with data, measurement, and evidence.
Ownership: you take ownership of the product’s success, not just your assigned tickets, and you identify and solve problems proactively.
Self-directed learning: you dig into a large, unfamiliar codebase yourself and come with specific, well-researched questions. The team invests heavily in helping people who do.
Strong technical discussion: this team enjoys rigorous debate. You argue from data, defend good ideas, and change your mind when shown better ones.
Clear communication: excellent written communication and collaboration skills in a distributed, async-friendly team.
Thoughtful AI use: you use AI-assisted development tools to increase productivity without lowering the quality bar.

Nice To Haves

Experience in airline pricing, distribution, or ATPCO data
Background building high-throughput, low-latency data platforms

Responsibilities

Extend and evolve our high-performance, fault-tolerant pricing engine to support new use cases
Shape the platform’s architecture and drive key technical decisions with the team
Solve complex challenges in distributed systems, scalability, and reliability
Work across the stack, from low-level system interactions to distributed algorithms and APIs
Optimize for extreme performance. At 200M+ fares, shaving milliseconds off latency and fractions of a cent off cost adds up fast. Techniques in play include: Zero-copy data paths, Lock-free data structures, Sophisticated fault tolerance and replication strategies
Get deep in the existing engine’s codebase and design, so enhancements build on what’s already there
Partner with engineers, product, and stakeholders to shape the future of airline retailing technology