Principal Software Engineer
About the role
At 8th Light, we collaborate with exceptional professionals to bring life to innovative ideas. This position requires a proven track record of success in complex software challenges, with a focus on building production-grade platforms, AI/ML systems, and scalable solutions.
Responsibilities
- Rapidly build trust with clients and demonstrate technical expertise
- Drive platform engineering work at the client level
- Lead platform strategy and delivery across diverse platform types
- Balance technology choices while delivering high-quality work within deadlines
- Advise clients on architecture, scalability, and platform evolution
- Collaborate on systems involving the full ML lifecycle
- Facilitate alignment across technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Provide mentorship and team support at scale
- Contribute to the health of your team and 8th Light’s culture
- Build and manage high-level technical roadmaps for large engagements
- Coach client engineering teams and transfer knowledge
- Influence client CTOs and executive decisions
- Plan and execute technical work involving stakeholders outside of project boundaries
- Support account teams in planning, opportunity identification, stakeholder relationships, and pre-sales scope shaping
- Facilitate retrospectives, strategy sessions, and technical deep-dives
- Identify, mitigate, and resolve blockers to team progress
- Represent 8th Light in the tech community and support hiring processes
- Apply architectural patterns to evaluate tradeoffs and drive clear, documented design rationale
- Bring depth in testing strategies, observability, fault tolerance, and secure engineering practices
Requirements
We seek candidates with a minimum of 10+ years of experience, showing long-term repeated success on a variety of projects. Key responsibilities include:
- Built and shipped production-grade platforms
- Taken AI and agentic systems from prototype to production
- Delivered on high-stakes consulting engagements across multiple language paradigms
- Built or integrated AI/ML features into products and systems
- Led modernization and replatforming efforts
- Experimented with new tooling and trends within the software industry
- Actively sought out and effectively given feedback
Preferred Skills
- Experience in platform engineering
- Experience in data engineering, including platforms like Databricks
- Experience in MLOps and DevSecOps
Benefits
At 8th Light, we provide a robust L&D program, an annual financial stipend for learning and development, coworking support, flexible PTO, and a range of benefits including parental leave. Compensation ranges vary based on geographic location.
Pay
The pay range for the Principal Engineer position varies by structure:
- Structure 1: $151,535 - $189,418 USD
- Structure 2: $159,240 - $199,050 USD
- Structure 3: $169,513 - $211,892 USD
- Structure 4: $176,705 - $220,881 USD
Schedule
This role is remote-first, with occasional virtual meetings and team-building activities. No travel is required for most engagements.
Contact
To learn more about this opportunity or our company, reach out to recruiting@8thlight.com. For a detailed look at our privacy policy, visit our Global Candidate Privacy Notice.