Principal Software Engineer

Vertafore•Denver, CO

15d•$125,000 - $180,000

About The Position

Vertafore is seeking a hands-on senior technical leader to shape its technology platforms and lead software development in an AI-native environment. The Principal Software Engineer will set architectural direction, personally address complex engineering challenges, and work with Product and Engineering leadership to ensure technology delivers customer value. The role includes guiding platform modernization, building shared engineering assets, defining AI-native practices, and raising technical standards across teams.

Requirements

10+ years of professional software engineering experience.
Deep expertise in at least one of Java, C#/.NET, Node.js/JavaScript, or Python.
Track record designing and delivering large-scale enterprise systems, with expertise grounded in architecture, distributed systems, and APIs.
Significant experience leading complex technical initiatives and influencing direction across multiple teams.
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and evidence of improving team workflows through automation.
Production experience with cloud platforms; AWS is preferred.
Clear communication with technical and nontechnical audiences.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Depth in AWS services such as EKS, ECS, and EC2; containerization; and cloud-native architecture.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, observability, and DevSecOps.
Experience with relational databases such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, or SQL Server, including SQL development and performance tuning.
Experience with modern UI frameworks such as React or Angular.
Experience evolving large-scale legacy applications into modern platforms.
Experience with applied AI, including LLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, agents, and agentic workflows.
Experience with platform engineering, shared services, internal platforms, and developer productivity tools.
Experience with regulated environments involving sensitive customer data, compliance requirements, and enterprise SaaS.

Responsibilities

Design and guide scalable, secure, resilient architectures, balancing speed, quality, and long-term sustainability.
Lead modernization of legacy platforms toward cloud-native, API-first, and AI-enabled architectures.
Identify and address technical debt, architectural risk, and performance bottlenecks.
Shape long-term technology strategy and evaluate emerging technologies through hands-on experiments and proofs of concept.
Contribute hands-on to design, implementation, prototyping, and debugging, including personally tackling the most complex problems.
Build reference implementations, reusable components, and shared frameworks to accelerate teams.
Own technical outcomes and uphold standards for security, performance, reliability, and observability.
Model effective use of AI coding agents, automated testing, and intelligent code review.
Help define Vertafore's AI-native development methodology, tooling, and standards, including where human judgment is needed.
Automate repetitive engineering work and measure its impact on velocity, quality, and reliability.
Define engineering standards and design principles, and lead constructive design reviews.
Mentor senior engineers, architects, and emerging technical leaders.
Influence decisions across teams and partner with Product, Architecture, and Security to turn business strategy into technical plans.