Senior Principal Software Engineer

Shutterfly•Fort Mill, SC

3d•Remote

About The Position

Spoonflower, part of the Shutterfly family of brands, is evolving its eCommerce platform into a modern, service-oriented architecture for a global, made-to-order retail environment. The Senior Principal Software Engineer will drive the design and evolution of core backend systems that power the commerce experience. This deeply technical role takes hands-on ownership of major platform areas and partners with engineers and cross-functional teams to scale the platform through Shopify integrations, GraphQL federation, and service-based systems. The position reports directly to the Director of Engineering. The role includes owning backend services and APIs, leading GraphQL services on an Apollo Federation supergraph, and improving Shopify integrations across storefront, administration, webhooks, and the order lifecycle. A key challenge is reconciling Shopify’s inventory-and-SKU commerce model with Spoonflower’s made-to-order, print-on-demand fulfillment flow. The engineer will also define service boundaries, data models, and system integrations; help other teams build and integrate effectively; diagnose complex distributed-system and runtime failures; and own production operability, observability, and incident response. The role contributes technical guidance through design reviews, mentoring, engineering standards, and roadmap tradeoff recommendations. The opportunity can be remote, provided candidates reside in a state where Shutterfly is registered to do business. Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled. Compensation depends on factors including level, responsibilities, location, and experience. Location-specific base pay ranges are listed in the posting, and the role may be eligible for a bonus incentive, health benefits, a 401K program, and other employee perks.

Requirements

At least 8 years of experience in backend or platform engineering.
Strong experience building and operating distributed systems and APIs at scale.
Deep proficiency in GraphQL design and implementation, including federated or supergraph architectures.
Experience with Shopify or similar eCommerce platforms.
Strong experience with Node.js and TypeScript.
Track record of diagnosing difficult production failures down to the runtime or transport level.
Demonstrated ownership of production systems, including performance, uptime, and reliability.
Ability to work independently and drive ambiguous, high-impact work to completion.
Strong communication skills for explaining tradeoffs and system design decisions.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Apollo Federation supergraph architectures.
Experience with headless commerce architectures.
Familiarity with AWS event-driven messaging, including SNS/SQS.
Experience with OpenSearch or similar search and retrieval systems.
Experience operating services on Kubernetes with Terraform-managed infrastructure.
Experience integrating third-party commerce platforms at scale.
Exposure to frontend systems such as Next.js or React for API collaboration.

Responsibilities

Own the design and evolution of core backend services and APIs supporting commerce workflows.
Lead architecture and implementation of GraphQL services on the Apollo Federation supergraph.
Build and improve Shopify integrations, including Storefront API, Admin API, webhooks, and the order lifecycle, as part of a cross-team effort.
Reconcile Shopify’s inventory-and-SKU commerce model with the made-to-order, print-on-demand fulfillment flow.
Define and improve service boundaries, data models, and integration points across systems.
Partner with frontend, product, and platform teams to simplify how teams build and integrate.
Diagnose and resolve distributed-systems and runtime-level failures, including federation transport behavior, connection-pool issues, and event-loop performance under load.
Own production systems, including operability, observability, and incident response.
Provide technical guidance through design reviews, mentoring, and setting engineering standards.
Influence roadmap decisions by communicating tradeoffs grounded in business and system impact.