Senior Principal Engineer

Responsibilities

• Define the architecture of the developer platform — API gateway, authentication, metering, billing integration, and settlement — ensuring it is sound, extensible, and cloud-native from the outset.
• Write production code and review pull requests; remain the senior hands-on technical contributor on the team and unblock engineers on the critical path.
• Serve as the primary technical interface between the Developer Platform and P&T and product engineering teams, building credibility as their go-to person for platform questions.
• Jointly develop and publish the API Design Standards v1, working collaboratively with product teams so that standards reflect the technical reality of what those teams are building and will actually be adopted.
• Own platform standards and governance: define the telemetry schema, maintain hub listing requirements, and establish the security and integration patterns applied across all API families.
• Establish IMS OAuth as the standard authentication model across all platform surfaces.
• Define and document migration paths for existing APIs to meet platform standards.
• Ensure AI and MCP surfaces are first-class citizens in the platform architecture and taxonomy, with documented agent integration patterns alongside traditional REST APIs.
• Partner with the Engineering Manager on technical hiring, team structure, and delivery sequencing.
• Partner with CIO organization on enterprise application/ERP integration, unified architecture.

Qualifications

• Principal or Distinguished engineering calibre, typically 12+ years of software engineering experience with significant time spent architecting large-scale systems.
• Deep, demonstrated experience in API platform architecture, including API gateways, routing, rate limiting, and entitlement enforcement.
• Strong expertise in OAuth 2.0 / OIDC, token handling, and platform authentication models.
• Hands-on experience designing metering, usage-based billing, and event-pipeline systems.
• Strong cloud-native infrastructure background (event streaming, distributed systems, settlement/ERP integration patterns).
• A rare combination of hands-on coding ability and the communication skills to work credibly and collaboratively with multiple distinct product engineering teams.
• Track record of defining standards or platform conventions that were adopted across independent teams — by influence and collaboration, not mandate.
• Familiarity with AI/agent integration patterns and MCP is a strong plus.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to align senior engineers across organizational boundaries.