Principal Software Engineer, Backend

Principal Software Engineer, Backend

Remote - New York City, NY; Remote - Seattle, WA; Remote - United States; San Francisco - Hybrid

About the Principal Software Engineer, Backend at Headspace:

At Headspace, you'll be working on a highly impactful consumer facing product that impacts millions of members globally. Our mission is to transform mental healthcare to improve the health and happiness of people all over the world, so join us to make that happen! As a Principal Engineer, you'll play a key role in shaping the technical foundation of our platform as we scale to serve millions of users. You will help us bring new features to life to meet our mission, while also helping push our platform to newer technologies as we embrace the cutting edge. A big goal needs talented people, so come join us and give your day job a sense of purpose!

What you will do:

• Lead architecture and design of high-scale, low-latency applications that are core to Headspace's business and member experience.
• Define long-term technical strategies and implementation paths for complex systems.
• Own and drive engineering excellence across multiple domains or squads. Write high-quality, performant, and testable code — primarily in Typescript and Python — and set the standard for craftsmanship across the organization.
• Shape product and platform evolution by partnering with PMs, EMs, and stakeholders across Product, Data, Security, and Infrastructure to align technical vision with business goals.
• Author technical specs and RFCs that guide not only your product pillar, but the entire company through critical design decisions.
• Take end-to-end ownership of features, from ideation and architecture to monitoring in production.
• Mentor and elevate engineers across levels, helping them scale their impact while promoting inclusive and empowering team dynamics.
• Drive operational excellence by developing resilient systems, implementing observability, and guiding production support practices. Lead efforts to improve system reliability, developer velocity, and cost efficiency.
• Act as a thought leader and multiplier, identifying systemic issues and architecting platform-level solutions with reusability and extensibility in mind.
• Provide a point of escalation for engineering teams facing complex technical challenges.
• Define coding standards, development processes, and best practices to ensure high-quality software development across engineering.
• Stay abreast of emerging technologies, industry trends, and best practices, evaluating their potential application and driving innovation within the software engineering and tech team broadly.

What you will bring:

Required Skills:

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of building and scaling production-grade APIs and distributed backend systems.
• Deep expertise in system design and software architecture, with the ability to decompose complex problems into scalable, maintainable components.
• Extensive experience with Node.js, TypeScript, and Python especially in the context of building high-scale backend services.
• Experience leading the definition, design, and delivery of complex software features in asynchronous and distributed team environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with unit, integration, and end-to-end testing, along with building and maintaining robust CI/CD pipelines for reliable, automated delivery.
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills—you can influence technical direction, align stakeholders, and clearly articulate trade-offs and decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional technical initiatives across teams.
• Ownership mindset: you thrive in ambiguity, consistently raise the bar, and take accountability for outcomes across teams.
• Comfortable making strategic technical decisions and coaching others through uncertainty, with a pragmatic eye on long-term impact and technical debt.
• Ability to balance technical excellence with product and business priorities, making decisions aligned with company goals.

Preferred Skills:

• BS/MS degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Demonstrated success designing and maintaining high-availability systems, with strong observability practices (metrics, logging, alerting).
• Deep knowledge of database design, data modeling, and query performance optimization across both relational and NoSQL systems.
• Familiarity with cloud-native architectures and services (e.g., AWS, GCP, Kubernetes) and modern DevOps practices.
• Track record of improving engineering velocity and reducing tech debt at scale.
• Strong debugging skills and comfort working within complex, distributed systems.
• Demonstrated ability to drive build vs. buy vs. refactor decisions with long-term implications in mind.
• Experience designing or maintaining Server-Driven UI (SDUI) systems to enable dynamic, schema-based UI rendering across web and mobile clients.

Location: This role is open to candidates across the US, with preferred locations in San Francisco, CA (hybrid), New York City, NY (remote), and Seattle, WA (remote). Candidates must permanently reside in the US full-time.

If your primary residence is in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, this role follows our hybrid model, with 3 days per week in office to support in-person collaboration. Your recruiter will share more details.

Pay & Benefits:

The anticipated new hire base salary range for this full-time position is $162,000-$225,000 + equity + benefits.

For candidates based in San Francisco, New York City, or Seattle, a separate salary range of $207,000-$258,750 applies, consistent with our location-based compensation philosophy.

Our salary ranges are based on the job, level, and location, and reflect the lowest to highest geographic markets where we are hiring for this role within the United States. Within this range, individual compensation is determined by a candidate's location as well as a range of factors including but not limited to: unique relevant experience, job-related skills, and education or training.

Your recruiter will provide more details on the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

At Headspace, base salary is but one component of our Total Rewards package. We're proud of our robust package inclusive of: base salary, stock awards, comprehensive healthcare coverage, monthly wellness stipend, retirement savings match, lifetime Headspace membership, generous parental leave, and more. Additional details about our Total Rewards package will be provided during the recruitment process.

About Headspace:

Headspace exists to provide every person access to lifelong mental health support. We combine evidence-based content, clinical care, and innovative technology to help millions of members around the world get support that's effective, personalized, and truly accessible whenever and wherever they need it.

At Headspace, our values aren't just what we believe, they're how we work, grow, and make an impact together. We live them daily: Make the Mission Matter, Iterate to Great, Own the Outcome, and Connect with Courage. These values shape our decisions, guide our collaborations, and define our culture. They're our shared commitment to building a more connected, human-centered team—one that's redefining how mental health care supports people today and for generations to come.

Why You'll Love Working Here:

• A mission that matters—with impact you can see and feel
• A culture that's collaborative, inclusive, and grounded in our values
• The chance to shape what mental health care looks like next
• Competitive pay and benefits that support your whole self

How we feel about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging:

Headspace is committed to bringing together humans from different backgrounds and perspectives, providing employees with a safe and welcoming work environment free of discrimination and harassment. We strive to create a diverse & inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, feel a sense of belonging, and do impactful work together.

As an equal opportunity employer, we prohibit any unlawful discrimination against a job applicant on the basis of their race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, family or parental status, disability*, age, veteran status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. We respect the laws enforced by the EEOC and are dedicated to going above and beyond in fostering diversity across our workplace.

*Applicants with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act and certain state or local laws. A reasonable accommodation is a change in the way things are normally done which will ensure an equal employment opportunity without imposing undue hardship on Headspace. Please inform our Talent team by filling out this form if you need any assistance completing