Principal/Staff Software Engineer

Synthesia•Seattle, WA

10d•$200,000•Remote

About The Position

Synthesia is seeking a Principal/Staff Software Engineer to work on core enterprise platform systems. The role focuses on services that ensure Synthesia is secure, reliable, and scalable for its largest customers. The engineer will contribute to a new suite of APIs to unlock Synthesia's Avatar technology for external creative tools. As an AI-native company, Synthesia utilizes advanced AI assistant tools like Claude and Cursor to enhance development speed and scope. This position involves ownership of complex, multi-month, multi-team projects, requiring the ability to break down ambiguous problems into iterative steps. Engineers are empowered to contribute to product discussions, considering both user and business needs, with a strong emphasis on impact. Collaboration with product, security, legal, and infrastructure teams is expected, translating business and regulatory requirements into scalable technical solutions. The role also involves evaluating work through system health and reliability metrics, leveraging observability and monitoring to meet performance, reliability, and compliance expectations, and considering the long-term platform direction for future scale and evolving needs.

Requirements

At least seven (7) years of experience as a software engineer, with experience operating at a senior or staff level.
Experience building and operating systems at scale, ideally within platform or enterprise-focused teams.
Strong expertise in development and system design.
Relevant engineering experience for teams building enterprise-grade systems (e.g., security, compliance, data handling, access control, multi-tenant systems, platform services).
Experience owning systems in production, including observability, incident response, and reliability improvements.
Ability to work across teams and functions, aligning with stakeholders and driving technical initiatives end-to-end.
Strong alignment with building reliable, scalable systems that support long-term product and business goals.

Nice To Haves

Experience across the stack; our tech stack is Python, React & AWS.
Previous experience leading projects or mentoring other engineers.

Responsibilities

Work on core enterprise platform systems, focusing on services that ensure Synthesia is secure, reliable, and scalable.
Contribute to a new suite of APIs to unlock Synthesia's Avatar technology for external creative tools.
Take ownership of projects that span months and multiple teams, breaking down complex problems into clear, deliverable steps.
Contribute heavily to product discussions with user and business considerations in mind.
Work closely with product, security, legal, and infrastructure partners.
Translate business and regulatory requirements into scalable technical solutions.
Evaluate work through system health and reliability metrics, leveraging observability and monitoring.
Ensure systems meet performance, reliability, and compliance expectations.
Consider the long-term direction of the platform to support future scale, enterprise requirements, and evolving regulatory needs.