Principal Software Engineer

About the job Principal Software Engineer


Coworker - Principal Software Engineer

Type: Full-time | Hybrid (on-site in San Francisco) | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $220K-$280K + competitive equity Hiring count: 1 Visa sponsorship: No - not open to any visas (US citizens / Green Card holders only) Reports to: Alexander Wurts, Head of Engineering(Intake note: principal engineers report to Bradford; Alexander Wurts is the listed report-to on the role page.)

About Coworker

Coworker (coworker.ai) is a seed-stage / pre-Series A AI startup redefining how organizations work with artificial intelligence. Its platform delivers enterprise-grade chat, cowork, and code capabilities across 40+ enterprise apps (Slack, Jira, GitHub, Confluence, and more) at roughly 80% lower inference cost with identical output quality and no custom coding required. At the core sits Organizational Memory, a proprietary knowledge graph capturing how teams, tools, and information relate across a company, and the product intelligently routes tasks across leading models (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Kimi) to maximize quality while minimizing cost. The company runs both an enterprise sales motion and a self-serve PLG motion, is approaching $1M ARR, and has a growing pipeline including organizations like Webflow.

Founded: 2023 | Team size: ~25 | Total funding: ~$10M (listed as raw "10" on the role page - confirm exact figure)Industry: AI, Enterprise, B2BWebsite: coworker.aiOffice: San Francisco, CA (+1)Led by founder-CEO Alex and Head of Sales Michael Saeta.

Why Candidates Should Join

• Hands-on Principal role: Ship code daily while owning the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain.
• Pre-Series A timing: Join before Series A, when equity is most valuable.
• Real technical ownership: Dive deep into the hardest distributed systems and AI infrastructure problems and drive cross-org initiatives with measurable business impact.
• AI-native platform: Build a product delivering enterprise-grade AI across 40+ apps at ~80% lower inference cost, powered by a proprietary organizational knowledge graph.

Intake Call Summary

• Title on the intake call framed as "Senior Software Engineer, based in Atlanta, likely focused in San Francisco." The posted role is Principal Software Engineer, SF - treat the posted title/level/location as authoritative; flagged as a discrepancy.
• Reports to Alexander Wurts; principal engineers report to Bradford.
• Requirements: 10+ years with enterprise-scale work; strong infrastructure skills, AI experience a significant plus; can own and maintain large-scale production code.
• Technical: distributed systems, data pipelines, AI/ML, infrastructure; proficient using AI tools regularly for coding.
• Interview: AI-focused technical and systems interviews; building projects and debugging using AI tools.
• Comp & logistics (per intake): salary $240K-$300K for SF market; three days in-office, potential for hybrid. Role page lists $220K-$280K - discrepancy flagged; using posted band.
• Ideal profile: experience leading teams and projects, interacting with executives; passionate about AI, strong curiosity and learning drive.
• Pain points / urgency: role is now a priority due to company growth and scaling needs; needs candidates who can manage cost constraints and scale infrastructure.
• Company context: growing team established in SF; focus on innovation with strong AI integration.

The Role

A Principal Software Engineer with 10+ years of experience to own the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain at a seed-stage AI startup. A deeply technical full-stack developer who ships high-quality code daily while providing thought leadership and mentorship.

What You'll Be Doing

• Ship code daily - hands-on development is the strong majority of the time, owning products from zero to one.
• Own the architecture and technical roadmap for a core domain; dive deep into the hardest distributed systems and AI infrastructure problems.
• Drive cross-org technical initiatives with measurable business impact, including incident response and post-mortems.
• Represent Coworker externally through talks, blog posts, or open-source contributions and help establish the engineering culture.

Tech stack: GoLang, TypeScript, Python

Qualifications

Seniority

• 10+ years of experience in full-stack software engineering, building from 0-to-1 in production environments [Required]

Work Experience

• Owned a product 0-to-1 (system design through deployment) [Must have]
• Led technical initiatives across teams without direct authority [Required]
• Defined SLAs and ran production systems at scale [Required]

Education

• Bachelor's or Master's degree (Computer Science preferred) [Required]

Hard Skills

• Deep expertise in 2+ of: AI/ML infra, distributed systems, data pipelines, security, frontend architecture [Must have]
• Professional experience with GoLang, TypeScript, or Python [Required]
• Uses AI tools to accelerate development velocity [Strongly preferred]

Soft Skills

• High autonomy; thrives on ambiguous problems at startups [Required]
• External presence via talks, blog posts, or open-source [Strongly preferred]

Miscellaneous

• Must work on-site in San Francisco [Must have]

Traits to Avoid

• Prefers management-only or architecture-only over daily hands-on coding
• Needs highly-structured, slow-paced corporate environments

Role Details

• Salary: $220K-$280K (intake cited $240K-$300K - discrepancy flagged)
• Equity: Competitive equity (percentage not specified)
• On-site policy: Hybrid - on-site in San Francisco; ~3 days/week in office (per intake)
• Visa sponsorship: Not open to any visas (US citizens / Green Card holders only)
• Employment type: Full-time
• Location: San Francisco, CA

Screening Questions

1. This role requires on-site work in San Francisco. Are you able to work from this location and come into the office regularly?
2. Which two of the following are your strongest areas of expertise: distributed systems, data pipelines, AI/ML infrastructure, security, or frontend architecture? Briefly describe a project where you demonstrated depth in each.
3. Tell us about a product you owned from zero to one - from initial system design through deployment. What was it and what decisions did you drive?
4. Can you be on-site? If not, are you willing to relocate?
5. What is your salary expectation?
6. How actively are you exploring new opportunities?

Interview Process

Stage 1 - Submit candidate After submitting, you'll be notified if the hiring manager wants to proceed.

Stage 2 - Initial Screen (30 minutes) Phone screen to assess basic qualifications, cultural fit, and interest. Conducted by Alex or Bradford to evaluate communication, motivation, and alignment with Coworker's mission.

Stage 3 - Technical Interview (60 minutes) Evaluate coding ability, problem-solving, and proficiency in GoLang / TypeScript / Python. Includes discussion of past projects and technical decision-making. Conducted by a senior engineer.

Stage 4 - System Design / Architecture Interview (60 minutes) Architect scalable systems, make technical trade-offs, and reason through complex problems relevant to enterprise AI infrastructure. Conducted by a senior engineer or engineering leader.

Stage 5 - Team / Culture Interview (45 minutes) Behavioral / culture-fit: collaboration, autonomy, ownership mentality, mentoring, and alignment with Coworker's startup-first culture. Conducted by team members.

Stage 6 - Offer Extended

Stage 7 - Candidate Hired

Ideal Companies & Backgrounds

Updated Aug 13, 2026

Enterprise AI & Productivity Leaders Glean, Adept AI, Writer, Scale AI, Cohere, Anthropic, Notion, Coda, Cresta

Modern Data & AI Infrastructure Platforms Databricks, Snowflake, Confluent, Anyscale, Hugging Face, Weights & Biases, dbt Labs

Top-Tier SaaS & Developer Tool Companies Stripe, Plaid, Slack, Atlassian, GitHub, Figma, Datadog, Twilio

Non-ideal companies (avoid sourcing from):

• Large Legacy Enterprise & IT Services: Oracle, SAP, IBM, Cisco, Accenture, Deloitte, TCS, Infosys, Capgemini
• Large Non-Tech Enterprises (Finance, Retail, Telecom): JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Walmart Labs, Target, AT&T, Verizon
• Traditional Hardware and Defense Companies: Intel, Dell, HP, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman

Ideal Candidate Profiles

For reference only - do not source these specific profiles.

Dennis Liger - LinkedInPrincipal SDE @ Atlassian | San Francisco Bay Area

• Good, respectable companies
• Some startup experience, including leading the company
• YC background
• Additional notes: HM is typically skeptical if someone's last job was a super-executive role, but Dennis has a lot of senior development as a principal and is three years past the super-executive role, showing he's comfortable working in a company again.

Wei S. - LinkedInPrincipal Engineer at Google | Ex-OpenAI | Co-founder of ProtonMail | MIT PhD | San Francisco Bay Area

• AI-forward team at Google
• MIT