About the company
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Engineer based in South Africa.
As a Principal Engineer stepping into an Architect-level role, you will shape the future architecture of a large-scale Merchant Experience platform.
Responsibilities
- Own and share accountability for the technical direction, architecture, and solution design within the Merchant Experience pillar.
- Make and guide key architectural decisions, reviewing technical and design documentation to ensure alignment with broader platform strategy and engineering standards.
- Contribute to organization-wide engineering strategy and standards through participation in architecture-focused initiatives and councils.
- Support engineering teams during implementation by creating proofs of concept, clarifying architectural decisions, and resolving complex design challenges.
- Investigate and address architecture-related challenges across performance, scalability, integrations, distributed systems, and other critical areas.
- Mentor engineers and technical leaders on architecture, design techniques, coding standards, and engineering best practices, extending technical influence across multiple teams.
- Collaborate with architects and engineering teams to establish cohesive architecture practices, guardrails, and standards, and drive their adoption.
- Act as a subject-matter authority for Domain-Driven Design and architectural best practices, educating and mentoring teams to promote consistent, high-quality solutions.
Requirements
- 10+ years of proven software engineering experience, including experience as a Staff or Principal Engineer, Lead Developer, Software Architect, or in a comparable senior technical leadership role.
- Expert theoretical and practical knowledge of Domain-Driven Design (DDD), particularly its application to microservices architectures and complex domain modeling.
- Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, software architecture, design patterns, and distributed systems.
- Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems and translate architectural concepts into practical solutions.
- Excellent written and spoken English, with strong communication skills and the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across teams.
- Professional experience with AWS or another major cloud platform such as Google Cloud or Azure.
- Strong technical leadership, mentoring, stakeholder management, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Nice to have: expert-level PHP experience, familiarity with PostgreSQL and MySQL, and an understanding of modern front-end technologies.
- Experience with technologies and practices such as Symfony, Doctrine, Yii, TypeScript, Node.js, Angular, Vue.js, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and cloud-native architectures is advantageous.
- Familiarity with AI-assisted software development, including the practical use of LLMs and coding assistants for implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and code quality, is a plus.
Conditions
- Fully remote work within eligible EMEA locations, including Romania, with flexibility to work from a modern office environment where available.
- Flexible working hours, with the ability to start the working day as late as 11 AM.
- Private health insurance.
- Two additional paid days off dedicated to mental or physical well-being.
- One additional paid day off for your birthday or another celebration of your choice.
- Access to internal and external learning and development opportunities.
- Mentorship, internal meetups, and hackathons, both online and on-site.
- Free, healthy lunch when working from the office.
- Employee discounts and the opportunity to design and order personalized merchandise.
- Team-building activities and social events in an inclusive, international environment.