Principal Engineer

Location: Silicon Valley, CA | Type: Contract (1+ year engagement) | Setup: Hybrid | Experience: 10+ years About the Role We're hiring a Principal Engineer to drive architecture for the platforms and products that power client delivery across a global advisory firm. You'll work at both the whiteboard and the keyboard, setting technical direction while staying hands‑on in the code that proves it out. A lot of this role is modernization: maturing existing platforms, standardizing engineering processes, and raising the bar for how software gets built across a large engineering organization. You'll define long‑term architecture direction so investment decisions hold up over years, then build the reusable components, libraries, and patterns that let other teams move faster. The client solves complex problems for major enterprises, so the systems you shape have to be reliable and performant under real client demands. This is for an engineer who has led at the architecture level but still wants to build, and who gets satisfaction from leveling up an entire engineering guild rather than shipping in isolation. What You’ll Do Drive and evangelize architecture for new and existing platforms and applications Design, develop, test, deploy, and enhance architectures spanning current business solutions and net-new products Establish long‑term architecture direction and governance so technical investments are sound Standardize engineering processes, shared libraries, and reusable components across the firm's product model Work closely with product owners and stakeholders to improve transparency on engineering cost and SLAs Develop and drive adoption of modern engineering principles, tooling, and technologies that accelerate productivity Mentor engineers, and build or identify training and continuous‑learning programs across the engineering org Advise leadership on technical feasibility, technology selection, and implementation approach for existing and new solutions Qualifications 10+ years as a Software Engineer, Software Architect, or in a similarly technical role Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent experience Demonstrated expertise across software frameworks, technologies, and modern development Deep hands‑on experience standing up an architecture and driving its adoption inside an organization Experience working to DevSecOps principles, with industry‑standard CI/CD tooling and infrastructure‑as‑code Proven engineering leadership: leading teams and motivating cross‑functional groups toward a shared goal Strong problem‑solving skills and the ability to craft solutions for ambiguous, large‑scale problems Excellent communication skills, with a knack for translating complex technical detail for diverse audiences Agile delivery experience and comfort with modern project management practices Nice to Have Built software for business consulting or enterprise SaaS environments Open‑source contributions or active involvement in technical communities A track record of mentoring and leveling up peers and junior engineers Why Join Us You'll set technical direction for an engineering organization that builds software clients actually depend on, with the room to standardize how things are done rather than work around inconsistency. The bar for engineering quality here is high, and the work carries the reach of a global firm. This is a hybrid role in Silicon Valley with occasional travel depending on client and team needs. If you want your architectural decisions to ripple across an entire engineering practice, this is the role. #J-18808-Ljbffr