Who you are

• Has experience working in a principal engineering or architect role
• Has experience leading multiple teams (20+ Engineers)
• Has 3+ years of experience in a staff engineering role
• Has 10+ years of experience working in the engineering profession
• Displays an expert-level knowledge of software design and architecture, and has experience with writing technical specifications
• Understands the needs of customers and users and is comfortable interacting with customers on a regular basis
• Loves to learn and grow. They’ve found (and keep looking for) ways to level up their skills in this field, whether that’s through formal education, gaining professional experience, or maybe even building their own business
• Previous experience in a SaaS environment using a shared code and infrastructure model
• Experience architecting cloud-native solutions
• Expert-level knowledge of one or more web frameworks
• Business analysis and requirements gathering experience

What the job involves

• We’re looking for a Principal Engineer to join us at Thinkific
• As a Principal Engineer at Thinkific, you’ll act as a force multiplier, making our engineering team better by advocating for best practices and helping fellow engineers find ways to level up their skills
• You will act as a bridge to match business and technical strategy and influence the longer term technical roadmaps of our systems and overall architecture
• You’ll speak to the technical aspects of the product, connect planned work for multiple products to business strategy, and most importantly, influence others around you towards these goals
• Own a strategic area within R&D from a technical perspective – your objective is to ensure business success and impact through technical decisions and implementations
• Own overall architecture, collaborate on prioritization of work, implementation details, technical stack decisions, and overall health of systems and features within your domains, ensuring alignment with higher level technical strategy and guiding principles as set out by the Lead Architect
• Work with engineering leaders and the Lead Architect to develop the roadmap and break things down into smaller tasks for engineering teams
• Work with senior, staff, and senior staff engineers who will own, develop, and maintain systems & features within the domains you oversee, ensuring they are following the direction and vision you have set
• Partner with the Director of Engineering to stay updated on business strategy into the future and pair with them on ownership of the domains, the principal from the technical perspective and the director from the strategic & organizational perspective
• Be responsible for writing and reviewing technical documentation in your business and technical domain, and sponsor other engineers within your area to maintain, add, and update as well
• Own SaaS metrics relating to your domains, like COGs, and be accountable for the overall costs, reliability, and scalability of your domains in relation to business value
• Maintain visibility outside of the organization, regularly contributing to the engineering blog, giving talks at conferences, and overall influencing engineering culture inside & outside the organization
• Review technical proposals for other engineers and help them level up by mentoring them and helping them solve complex problems
• Play an active role in our hiring process to help us continue to scale our Engineering team, from suggesting skills gaps, to interviewing candidates, to conducting assignment reviews
• Participate in on-call rotations as required, troubleshooting production issues to maintain service reliability

Benefits

• Open vacation policy: We're big proponents of sand, sun, and taking time to recharge. As long as you're getting your work done and keeping your team supported, take vacation when you need it. We encourage Thinkers to take at least 4 weeks vacation each year
• Flexible work environments: Whether you’re working from Thinkific HQ or working from home, set your own hours to find a rhythm that works for you and your team. Finding the time for workouts, laundry, daycare dropoffs, or appointments is easier than ever.
• Learning opportunities and personal development: Interested in a course, conference, or career coaching? We’ve got you covered with our $1500 Learn and Grow fund to support your personal and professional growth, on top of regular lunch & learns, internal courses and workshops, and a coaching program. Our people leaders will work with you to ensure you’re taking advantage of the learning opportunities you want and need
• Competitive benefits package: Our benefits kick in on your first day at Thinkific and include coverage for health, vision, dental, prescriptions, and up to $3000 for your mental health. Our Employee and Family Assistance Program will also take care of you and your family, providing everything to support your well-being
• Parental leave: We care about helping you grow your career AND your family. Family is important to us, and our paid parental leave gives you a little extra help while you're beginning this new adventure. Learn more about our family leave benefits here
• We actually hang out: Thinkers are some of the kindest (and most fun!) people out there. We're into boat parties, hackathons, company retreats, and celebrating everything from Canada Day to Brazilian Carnival. Wherever you’re based, you’ll have opportunities to connect with your team both virtually and IRL
• The bow-wow benefits: Office dogs. Plural. Meet them on Instagram at @dogsofthinkific