Principal Software Engineer

About the role

On-site in Los Angeles, CA. Our client seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead backend services and APIs for a payment processing platform supporting prominent technology partners. The role will drive technical leadership across release engineering, DevOps pipelines, observability, reliability, and secure SDLC in an AI-enabled environment. This is a contract to hire opportunity. Applicants must be willing and able to work on a w2 basis and convert to FTE following contract duration.

Responsibilities

• Lead development of backend services and RESTful APIs for payment processing at scale.
• Drive release engineering, Azure-based DevOps pipelines, and secure SDLC practices.
• Design and optimize distributed, event-driven architectures using queues and messaging.
• Implement observability with Datadog or equivalent, including alerting and incident response.
• Own test automation frameworks and integrate suites into CI/CD.
• Advance CI/CD workflows, platform reliability, and SLA adherence.
• Collaborate with QA, Security, and Infrastructure for seamless deployments.
• Mentor engineers and promote engineering best practices.
• Translate stakeholder requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Operate in an AI-driven SDLC and implement intelligent testing capabilities.

Requirements

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with 2+ years as a hands-on technical lead.
• Expertise in C#, .NET, SQL Server, and Azure services such as AKS, Service Bus, App Services, and Azure DevOps.
• Strong knowledge of RESTful API design, OAuth2, and microservices.
• Hands-on with queuing, multithreading, and distributed computing using Kafka, Service Bus, or MQ.
• Proven ownership of test automation frameworks beyond unit testing, integrated with CI/CD.
• Observability experience with Datadog or similar tools.
• Experience in payments or financial services with high transaction volume.
• Familiarity with GitHub Actions and container orchestration.
• Secure coding and compliance in regulated environments such as PCI DSS or SOC 2.
• Experience with Agile methodologies and tools such as JIRA.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent work experience.
• Preferred: fintech environment experience, peer-to-peer payments exposure, stability and release management, open-source or publications, and leadership of scalable platform practices.

Pay & Benefits

• Rate: $70.00 to $76.00/hr. w2
• For our w2 consultants, we offer a great benefits package that includes Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits, 401k with company matching, and life insurance.