Principal Software Engineer

CVS Health•Island, KY

55d•$144,200 - $288,400

About The Position

CVS Health Digital is looking for hands-on, passionate people who want to join a high energy and growing team to make a difference in customers’ lives and who want to be on the forefront of digital innovation that aims to reinvent what a pharmacy and a health care company can be in the digital world. Currently, we are hiring for a Principal Software Engineer, who will define and drive the technical direction for the organization and will work with high visibility enterprise teams to develop and execute Enterprise Solution Strategy for mobile. Operating as both a senior individual contributor and technical leader, you will partner closely with product, architecture, and engineering leadership to make pragmatic, high‑impact design decisions that balance speed, quality, and long‑term maintainability. The Principal Software Engineer will remain hands‑on with critical‑path systems while mentoring senior and staff engineers and translating prototypes into scalable into production‑grade platforms. You will establish clear expectations for reliability, security, performance, and operability, ensuring strong engineering fundamentals—such as testing, observability, and CI/CD—are embedded from day one. Through technical leadership, collaboration, and example, you will elevate engineering quality, accelerate delivery, and foster a culture of craftsmanship, learning, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

10+ years of hands-on information technology experience in systems analysis, application design, application development, and application program development
7+ years of development experience in the following languages: Java, Swift, Swift UI, Kotlin
5+ years of experience in design and evolve scalable, modular mobile architectures (e.g., MVVM, Clean Architecture), handle complex app lifecycles, and make long-term technical decisions across both platforms
5+ years of experience in managing stakeholder’s requirements, and technical solutions
3+ years of experience working on CI/CD Pipeline automation
3+ years of experience in setting engineering standards, mentor senior engineers, collaborate with product/design, and influence mobile strategy at an org-wide level
1+ years of software development experience within AI technologies, particularly Generative AI and Large Language Models and familiarity with AI/ML frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn)
1+ years of experience with Flutter
Proven ability to lead complex technical initiatives and influence engineering direction without relying on formal authority
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience (HS diploma + 4 years relevant experience)

Nice To Haves

Experience working with multiple foundation model providers and a clear point of view on when to use each
Experience designing or integrating AI or generative AI solutions, including APIs, models, or platforms
Hands-on working knowledge of JavaScript, AngularJS, and/or NodeJS
Experience building MCP servers and defining tool integrations for agent ecosystems
AI evaluation tooling experience (LangSmith, Braintrust, Promptfoo, or custom evaluation harnesses)
Hands‑on experience using AI coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot) as production build tools, not just IDE assistants
Experience in the health, wellness, or pharmacy domain
Contributions to open‑source projects, published technical content, or patented innovations
Full‑stack development experience, including APIs, data stores, and cloud services

Responsibilities

Establish and ensure adherence to technical direction, standards, guidelines, and methodology for use of specified technologies in the department.
Lead the Technical Advisory council that performs application architectural reviews on department initiatives.
Partner with teams and serve as subject matter expert to provide benchmarked solutions to multiple, complex technical projects/initiatives within own area of expertise and organize cross-departmental application architectural solutions.
Influence technical standards and tool selection for the entire company.
Vendor technology evaluation and influence.
Work with external development firms to evaluate the strength of their platforms as candidates for selection to be added to CVS' environment.
Influence the vendors' technical direction to align with those of CVS.
Architect for backward/forward compatibility and insulation from the shortcomings of vendor software.
Develop and improve strategic technical direction for functional areas.
Maintain the departmental strategic multi-year roadmap and author new additions to it.
Align with the Enterprise technology roadmap and extend it to include technology useful to the Specialty department.
Use quantitative measures to guide architectural priorities.
Engage senior technical and business leaders in the development of the technical roadmap then present the results.
Keep abreast of technological trends in the industry and determine if useful and/or feasible (i.e. financial impact) and make recommendations to the organization.
Build the business case for new tools and drive the funding process.
Lead Proof of Concept (POC) initiatives to evaluate technologies.
When new technologies / techniques are selected, then manage the integration, cultural adoption, and transition.
Lead matrixed application Technical Leads in the development and implementation of application standards through all parts of the Specialty Dispensing architectural stack.
Facilitate experts in a variety of disciplines: Swift, SwiftUI, Java, Kotlin, Public & Private Cloud, Rules Engines, Open Source & Proprietary frameworks, etc. to work on how methodologies and standards will be defined.
Act as the most senior technical contributor on strategic initiatives.
During some periods leading (e.g. defining sensible sets of functionalities to be grouped into projects of a multi-year program) and other times supporting (e.g. providing application architectural designs with the Technical Lead on the project).
Be deeply personally engaged in the success of this program.
Identifies necessary process changes for the department and methodically implements them.
Leads the department's DevSecOps maturity journey.
Progresses the Unit and QA Test Automation processes in collaboration with the Quality Assurance organization to “shift left”.
Selects and implements the tooling for the Continuous Integration & Continuous Deployment pipeline across all technology stacks (i.e. Angular, Java, Oracle).
Surveys other departments, enterprise initiatives, and the industry for best practices for the department to adopt.