Principal Software Engineer

The job responsibilities outlined in this document are not exhaustive and may evolve over time and be reviewed according to business needs.

ROLE DESCRIPTION SUMMARY

SES has an exciting opportunity for a Principal Software Engineer.  You will be part of a team responsible for

• Portal Software design and governing team productivity, scalability, simplification and quality improvements
• Collaborating closely with the team to understand functional and technical requirements
• Driving effective backlog refinement and team-level grooming activities
• Leading the team using Agile principles to ensure clarity, focus, and delivery alignment
• Partnering closely with Team members, SMEs, Product and external stakeholders.
• Preparing and guiding the team through PI Planning and sprint commitments
• Coordinating development and QE efforts to ensure seamless execution
• Enabling predictable delivery through strong technical leadership and decision-making
• Maintaining hands-on involvement in coding, design, and problem-solving
• Guiding the team in following best coding standards, engineering practices and effective use of AI
• Improving team productivity, code quality, and technical excellence
• Partnering with Architects to align implementation with architectural direction
• Supporting feature grooming, solution design discussions, and dependency management
• Mentoring team members and fostering continuous improvement

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES / KEY RESULT AREAS

The ideal candidate for this role will be a key technical leader and active working member of an engineering team, delivering high-quality technical solutions by guiding design, implementation, and delivery activities at the team level. This role requires a strong understanding of requirements, system design, development practices, and Agile execution, along with the ability to drive predictable outcomes. Primary Responsibilities will include the following.

Core Responsibilities

• Team-Level Technical Leadership & Delivery: Lead technical execution within the team, ensuring designs, implementations, and deliverables align with sprint and PI objectives while maintaining delivery predictability.
• Requirement Understanding & Feature Refinement: Collaborate with Product Owners, Architects, and stakeholders to clarify functional and technical requirements, drive backlog refinement, define scope, and ensure implementation feasibility.
• Hands-on Development & Technical Contribution: Actively participate in coding, design, and debugging activities — not only guiding the team but contributing alongside team members to accelerate delivery and strengthen technical outcomes.
• Team Enablement & Capability Uplift: Work closely with engineers to bring the team into better shape by improving development practices, technical skills, collaboration, and overall engineering effectiveness.
• Development & QE Coordination: Partner with Development and QE teams to ensure testability, quality coverage, timely defect resolution, and smooth end-to-end feature delivery.
• Coding Standards & Engineering Practices through AI: Guide and enforce adherence to best coding standards, development processes, CI/CD practices, and code quality expectations through reviews, mentorship and effective use of AI tools.
• Risk, Dependency & Impediment Management: Proactively identify technical risks, cross-team dependencies, and delivery impediments, driving timely mitigation and escalation where necessary.
• Collaboration with Architecture & Platform Teams: Partner with Architects to ensure implementation alignment with architectural direction, platform guidelines, and non-functional requirements.
• Mentorship & Team Capability Development: Mentor engineers within the team, fostering technical growth, ownership, and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Quality, Stability & Operational Readiness: Support production readiness by ensuring performance, reliability, observability, and post-release stability considerations are embedded in delivery.
• Continuous Improvement & Agile Execution: Drive improvements in team productivity, estimation accuracy, Agile ceremonies, and overall delivery effectiveness.

Key Focus Areas

• Team-Level Software Delivery: Drive high-quality, maintainable, and reliable software development within the team, ensuring timely and predictable delivery aligned with sprint and PI objectives.
• Implementation Excellence: Ensure solutions are designed and implemented with strong emphasis on code quality, testability, reusability, and adherence to engineering best practices.
• Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs): Ensure delivered features meet defined NFRs, including performance, reliability, security, observability, and maintainability.
• Quality & Stability: Partner with QE to strengthen validation strategies, reduce defects, and improve overall system stability.
• Operational Readiness: Support production readiness by incorporating monitoring, logging, resiliency, and supportability considerations into development.
• Continuous Improvement: Drive ongoing improvements in development practices, Agile execution, team productivity, and technical maturity.

COMPETENCIES

• Communication: Clearly articulates functional and technical concepts within the team, ensuring shared understanding through effective discussions, documentation, and collaboration with Product Owners, Architects, QE, and stakeholders.
• Technical Judgment & Problem Solving: Demonstrates strong analytical thinking to evaluate implementation approaches, resolve technical challenges, manage trade-offs, and guide the team toward practical, high-quality solutions.
• Technical Leadership & Team Collaboration: Leads by example with ownership and accountability, working hands-on alongside team members while fostering collaboration, alignment, and continuous improvement within cross-functional Agile teams.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

• Master’s or bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or a related field
• Minimum 12+ years of experience in the software industry, with 2–4 years in a Technical Lead or senior engineering role
• Strong hands-on development experience with Java / Spring Boot / Go / Node.js
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines and AWS deployments (EC2, SQS, SNS, Lambda, S3, Aurora, DynamoDB)
• Good working knowledge of technologies such as NGINX, RabbitMQ, REST APIs, and microservices
• Nice to have development experience in React.js or modern UI frameworks
• Solid experience in designing and implementing scalable, maintainable applications
• Strong understanding of system observability, logging, monitoring, and production support
• Advanced knowledge of software development lifecycles and strong experience in Agile methodologies
• Ability to guide implementation decisions aligned with architectural direction
• Proponent of engineering best practices including DevOps, TDD, CI/CD, and code quality standards
• Ability to work under pressure, prioritize tasks, coordinate with stakeholders, and remain well organized
• Flexibility to work across technologies, tools, and platforms
• Demonstrated commitment to technical excellence, best practices, and continuous improvement

OTHER KEY REQUIREMENTS / COMMENTS

• Strong knowledge of Agile software development (story refinement, sprint planning, retrospectives)
• Experience with Continuous Integration and Test Automation methodologies
• Experience collaborating with QE teams on validation strategies
• Nice to have experience with creating or validating user interfaces