Principal Software Engineer

At the MBTA, we envision a thriving region enabled by a best-in-class transit system. Our mission is to serve the public by providing safe, reliable, and accessible transportation. MBTA’s core values are built around safety, service, equity, sustainability, culture, and accessibility, and each employee performs their roles based on our vision, mission, and values. This includes attendance, participation, and contribution in local safety committee meetings as needed.

About the Role

The Principal Software Engineer is a cross-team technical leader who architects multi-team systems, drives long-term technical strategy, and influences engineering direction. This position will collaborate closely with relevant Technology team members in UX Research and Design, Content, Product, and Program to solve complex user problems efficiently. The role involves reducing system-wide complexity, designing scalable system architecture, aligning technical strategy across teams toward common business goals, leading large multi-team initiatives, and shaping architectural best practices and guardrails in your cross-team domain area.

The Principal Software Engineer is expected to solve complex business problems, identify efficiencies across teams in their domain area, and align these teams toward a technical vision to implement these efficiencies while delivering applicable product roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Architect multi-team systems for scalability, resilience, and maintainability.
• Lead cross-team design reviews and ensure architectural coherence.
• Break down ambiguous organizational goals into clear execution strategies.
• Identify, actively manage a backlog for, and resolve systemic reliability, performance, and productivity risks in your domain area.
• Define the technical vision and strategy for their domain area.
• Influence technical roadmaps across multiple teams and domains.
• Mentor senior and lead software engineers; grow technical leadership capacity.
• Lead modernization, tooling, and/or CI/CD improvements across TID for efficiency gains.
• Facilitate alignment across engineering, UX, product, ops, and external partners to achieve business goals efficiently and effectively.
• Participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services as needed.
• Perform all other duties and projects that may be assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
• Ten (10) or more years of relevant professional experience in software engineering with demonstrated success architecting complex systems, reducing systemic reliability risks, and shaping technical strategy.
• Five (5) years of technical leadership experience such as functional, program, or project management, driving system architecture and cross-team delivery in a modern software engineering environment.
• Experience leading end-to-end delivery of complex projects requiring ingenuity and resourcefulness, including leading multi-team technical initiatives, often requiring technical alignment from multiple teams to execute.
• Deep technical expertise across multiple domains.
• Strong architectural judgment and ability to anticipate long-term implications.
• Demonstrated experience aligning technical vision and strategy across multiple teams toward a common business or efficiency goal.
• Exceptional communication and cross-functional alignment skills.
• Demonstrated proficiency in at least two (2) programming languages from the TIOBE top 20 (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/).
• Ability to participate in on-call rotation of technology systems and services.

As part of the selection process, candidates will be asked to complete and pass job-related technical assessments, which may include a software design diagramming exercise and/or a timed coding exercise.

Qualifications

• A high school diploma or GED with an additional seven (7) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• An associate’s degree from an accredited institution and an additional three (3) years of directly related experience substitutes for the bachelor’s degree requirement.
• A master’s degree in a related subject substitutes for two (2) years of general experience.
• A nationally recognized certification, or statewide/professional certification in a related field substitutes for one (1) year of experience.

Preferred Skills

• Experience driving organization-wide technical programs.
• Experience designing systems with major scale, reliability, or compliance constraints.
• Experience with Elixir.
• Experience with AWS.
• Experience in public sector, transportation agency, and/or civic technology team.
• Experience with Terraform / OpenTofu / Infrastructure as Code tools.
• Experience developing code as part of an open-source project.
• Knowledge of transit data standards (such as GTFS, GTFS-RT, TODS, TIDES).
• Advanced degree from accredited institution in computer science or similar field.

Job Conditions

• Ability to effectively read, comprehend, communicate, and respond to instructions, orders, signs, notices, inquiries, etc. in English.
• Be at least eighteen (18) years of age, except if participating in an approved high school internship / co-op program.
• Ability to commute to assigned work locations in the Boston, MA metro area, as required by the role.
• Ability to provide internal and external customers with courteous and professional experiences.
• Ability to work effectively, independently, and as part of a diverse workforce team (or supervise, if required).
• Ability to uphold the rights and interests of the MBTA while building and maintaining effective relationships with employees and co-workers.
• Ability to adhere to rules, regulations, collective bargaining agreements (if applicable), and policies of the MBTA, including the EEO, anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation policies.
• Have a satisfactory work record for the two (2) years immediately prior to the closing date of this posting (unless if current student or recent graduate), including overall employment, job performance, discipline, and safety records.
• Ability to pass a Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) check, comprehensive background screening, and/or medical Clinic screening, potentially including physical examination and drug and alcohol screenings.
• Ability to work all shifts and/or locations assigned, directed, or necessary for this position.

One to three (1-3) direct reports.