Principal Software Engineer

Relay Payments•Atlanta, GA

10d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Principal Software Engineer at Relay, you’ll be responsible for building the next generation payments network for an industry that has seen little innovation in the last 50 years. You’ll help drivers save hours each week by making transactions painless. You’ll help everyone in the transaction chain get visibility into spending, perform accurate accounting, and save money. You’ll build fast and reliable payment products for an industry that keeps America running. You will play a critical role in designing resilient systems, driving complex projects to completion, mentoring engineers, and solving some of the most challenging technical problems across Relay’s platform. This role is ideal for an engineer who combines deep technical expertise with strong ownership, sound judgment, and the ability to influence technical direction.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience, with preference for candidates who have worked in payments, FinTech, logistics, financial systems, or other complex transactional domains.
A proven track record of personally delivering complex software projects, not just designing or advising on them.
Strong hands-on backend engineering experience, especially with service-oriented systems, APIs, data modeling, and distributed system design.
Ability to take ambiguous or complex problems, clarify the path forward, and execute through delivery.
Deep experience analyzing and resolving difficult technical problems across systems, services, data flows, and integrations.
Strong ownership mindset with the ability to drive projects forward across uncertainty, dependencies, and changing priorities.
Detail-oriented systems thinker who can work independently, collaborate effectively, and bring clarity to complex situations.
Strong judgment in balancing business needs, technical quality, delivery timelines, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
Experience architecting solutions thoughtfully by limiting unnecessary complexity, justifying decisions, and clearly articulating tradeoffs.
Excellent written and oral communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical topics to technical and non-technical audiences.
A strong understanding of software testing strategies, observability, incident prevention, and production support practices.
Golang
PostgreSQL or equivalent relational database
Service-oriented architectures
API design and integration patterns
Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control
SOLID architecture design principles
Distributed systems, reliability, scalability, and performance optimization
Automated testing, CI/CD, and production observability

Nice To Haves

React front-end web application knowledge

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and deliver high-quality systems, services, APIs, libraries, and infrastructure.
Take direct ownership of complex project work, including breaking down ambiguous requirements, identifying risks, sequencing technical execution, and driving work through completion.
Write production code and contribute hands-on across the stack, with a strong focus on Golang.
Lead by example through strong engineering execution, thoughtful design, clear communication, and reliable delivery.
Partner with product managers, designers, engineering managers, and other engineers to translate business needs into practical, maintainable technical solutions.
Mentor and coach other developers through design discussions, code reviews, technical guidance, pairing, and feedback.
Identify and proactively address technical debt, architectural risks, operational issues, and opportunities to improve developer productivity.