Principal Software Engineer

About Encore Talent Solutions

Encore Talent Solutions is a trusted professional services firm dedicated to helping organizations achieve their goals by providing exceptional talent solutions. We partner closely with our clients to understand their unique culture and operational needs, delivering proactive support during times of growth, transition, and change. Our mission is to connect top talent with meaningful opportunities to drive business success.

Job DescriptionWe are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join our dynamic team. In this role, you will play a key part in improving the reliability, resiliency, and performance of a modern embedded finance platform by diagnosing complex production issues, driving architectural improvements, and implementing long-term engineering solutions.
You will collaborate with software engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), platform engineering, product, and operations teams to build highly scalable, observable, and resilient cloud-native systems that support mission-critical financial services.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead complex production triage and incident response across APIs, payment processing, distributed systems, cloud infrastructure, and data services.
• Diagnose and resolve production issues involving transaction lifecycles, third-party integrations, microservices, infrastructure, and application dependencies.
• Partner with engineering teams to identify root causes and implement permanent solutions that improve platform reliability and reduce recurring incidents.
• Design, implement, and enhance monitoring, alerting, operational tooling, automation, and observability across the platform.
• Improve system resiliency through architectural enhancements, code optimization, automation, and operational best practices.
• Develop and support cloud-native applications using technologies including Ruby on Rails, Java, AWS, APIs, microservices, and SQL databases.
• Design systems that prioritize scalability, observability, fault tolerance, and operational excellence from inception.
• Analyze production performance metrics and recommend improvements to system health, throughput, and reliability.
• Mentor software engineers and promote engineering excellence, operational maturity, and SRE best practices across the organization.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve deployment processes, incident response, and platform stability.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
• 8 years of experience in Software Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Production Engineering, or building and operating distributed systems.
• Proficiency in:
• Ruby on Rails and/or Java
• AWS cloud services
• RESTful APIs
• Microservices architecture
• SQL databases and data analysis
• Observability platforms such as Splunk, Datadog, or New Relic
• Strong understanding of:
• Distributed systems architecture
• Production system behavior
• Fault isolation and root cause analysis
• Performance tuning and optimization
• High availability and resiliency patterns
• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex production issues spanning application code, infrastructure, networking, and data layers.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
• Ability to remain calm, organized, and effective during production incidents and critical escalations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working within payments, fintech, banking, or other highly regulated industries.
• Experience building operational tooling, automation frameworks, and diagnostic workflows.
• Strong knowledge of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles, incident management, and production operations.
• Experience improving observability strategies, monitoring frameworks, alerting, and incident response processes.
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction across multiple engineering teams.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, and cloud automation tools.
• Experience supporting high-volume, customer-facing SaaS or financial transaction platforms.
• Knowledge of cloud security, compliance, and modern DevSecOps practices.

Work Environment & Location

• Location: Remote
• Travel: Minimal, as required
• Collaborative team environment with opportunities to influence platform architecture, mentor engineering teams, and solve complex production challenges within a modern cloud-native technology stack.

Equal Opportunity EmployerEncore Talent Solutions is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We respect and seek to empower each individual and support the diverse cultures, perspectives, skills, and experiences within our workforce.