Principal Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

US Gold Bureau (USGB) is a leader in FinTech, driving innovation in the precious metals industry as part of Lone Star Tangible Assets (LSTA), alongside Texas Bullion Depository. Our Engineering team builds and maintains the technical systems that run the business across every organization — the eCommerce platform, ERP, CRM and marketing automation, business intelligence, telephony, and the integrations that connect them. USGB is invested in representing business workflows as code, moving data cleanly between systems and giving the business and customers trustworthy tools to operate on.

As Principal Engineer, you are the senior technical authority for how we design, build, and evolve software across the organization. You own architecture, code quality, and engineering process, and you stay hands-on — writing and reviewing code, prototyping, and setting the technical standard by example. You are also our AI-first developer, leading how we adopt AI tooling and AI-assisted development across teams. Reporting to and partnering closely with the CTO, you act as the CTO's technical right hand, and you work directly with Product and the development team to solution and scope new work. This is a high-influence individual-contributor role with no direct reports: you set the technical direction and standards that a distributed, global development team executes against, so your leverage comes through architecture, code reviews, clear technical direction, and strong written communication.

The Opportunity

We are preparing to build a new generation of state-of-the-art FinTech systems designed to change the precious metals industry. This is a rare chance to help shape that platform from the ground up — making the foundational architecture, technology, and AI decisions that define what we build and how fast we can move. As Principal Engineer, you will be a key driver of this effort: setting the technical vision alongside the CTO, proving out the hardest pieces in code, and establishing the standards the rest of the organization builds on. If you want your work to have outsized, lasting impact on a company and an industry, this is that role.

We are well ahead of most companies in our adoption of AI — it is already woven into how we work, not a someday initiative. For this role, that means you will spend your time building AI-first solutions on top of a mature foundation, not fighting to get AI onto the roadmap. If working at the frontier of applied AI is what excites you, few places will let you go as far, as fast.

Scope of Ownership

You are expected to understand the full breadth of technology across the organization and to solution using the best-fit stack for each problem. The systems and codebases in scope include, but are not limited to:

•     eCommerce — Adobe Commerce (Magento 2) and the PWA storefront (Pylot), including PHP, GraphQL, and front-end components.

•     Custom applications — Custom in-house applications and services (e.g., the Portfolio Tracker and Buying Program and related internal tools), built primarily in Node.js/TypeScript and Python.

•     Depository management (TxBD) — Our custom depository management system (BDMA) that runs Texas Bullion Depository operations — a business-critical, regulated platform handling sensitive customer data.

•     Integrations — System-to-system integrations built on Workato as the standard middleware/integration platform, orchestrating data flows between eCommerce, ERP, CRM, telephony, and data systems following an ETL pattern.

•     Business systems — HubSpot (CRM), NetSuite (ERP), and marketing automation — the platforms Workato connects and keeps in sync.

•     Data & BI — The Snowflake → ThoughtSpot stack, dbt models, and the ongoing Tableau-to-ThoughtSpot migration.

•     Platform & DevOps — Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), CI/CD in GitLab and GitHub, cloud services (AWS/GCP), and Datadog for observability.

Duties and Responsibilities

Architecture & Technical Strategy

•     Own the end-to-end architecture of USGB/LSTA systems — define target-state designs, service boundaries, data flows, and integration patterns, and document them so others can build to them.

•     Evaluate build-vs-buy and technology choices, and recommend a single best-fit approach with clear reasoning, trade-offs, and cost/risk implications for the CTO.

•     Produce architecture diagrams, decision records, and technical designs that translate business goals into concrete engineering plans.

•     Guide platform and modernization efforts (e.g., middleware consolidation onto Workato, the ThoughtSpot migration) with pragmatic, low-risk migration paths.

Hands-On Development

•     Write production code, build prototypes, and take on the hardest or highest-risk implementation work directly.

•     Set the standard through code review — review work from a distributed development team, enforce quality, and mentor through written feedback.

•     Debug and resolve complex cross-system issues that span multiple services, languages, and platforms.

AI Enablement (AI-First Development)

•     Lead the organization's AI-assisted development journey — evaluate and roll out AI coding tools, agents, and workflows, and establish standards and guardrails for their safe, effective use.

•     Help drive AI adoption across the wider company — partner with teams beyond engineering to identify high-value use cases and bring AI into everyday business workflows and decision-making.

•     Embed AI into our own SDLC and systems — modernize how we plan, build, test, review, and ship software with AI, and build AI capabilities into the products and platforms we operate.

•     Identify where AI can accelerate delivery or unlock new capabilities across engineering, data, and business workflows, and prototype those opportunities.

•     Coach the team on effective, responsible AI-augmented engineering practices.

Engineering Standards & Process

•     Define and maintain coding standards, branching and CI/CD practices, testing expectations, and release/deployment processes across repositories.

•     Improve engineering throughput and quality — reduce defects, tighten feedback loops, and raise the bar on documentation and observability.

•     Champion security and compliance in design and code, including encryption, access control, MFA, retention, and audit trails — with heightened care for anything touching regulated customer data (e.g., Texas Bullion Depository, which is GLBA-regulated).

Solutioning & Cross-Functional Collaboration

•     Partner with the CTO, Product, and the development team to solution and scope new initiatives — turning ideas into estimable, well-architected work.

•     Break down initiatives into clear technical deliverables and hand them off to the development team with enough specification to execute confidently.

•     Serve as the CTO's technical right hand — translating between business intent and engineering execution, and providing the deep technical judgment the CTO relies on.

Qualifications and Requirements

•     Significant professional software engineering experience (typically 8+ years), including senior/principal-level or lead architecture responsibility.

•     Demonstrated ability to own architecture across a diverse, multi-system environment and to remain hands-on in code.

•     Strong full-stack breadth: proficiency across at least one back-end ecosystem (Node.js/TypeScript, Python, or PHP) and comfort with modern front-end frameworks (React/Vue).

•     Experience designing and building system integrations and ETL/data-movement patterns between business platforms (e.g., CRM, ERP, eCommerce).

•     Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS and/or GCP), Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), and CI/CD (GitLab, GitHub, or equivalent).

•     Familiarity with data/BI stacks (data warehousing such as Snowflake, dbt, and BI tools such as ThoughtSpot or Tableau) is strongly preferred.

•     Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and a clear point of view on adopting them responsibly at scale.

•     Excellent written communication — able to lead and influence a distributed, global team through documentation, designs, and reviews.

•     Awareness of security and regulatory considerations (e.g., GLBA, handling of non-public personal information) in system design is a plus.

•     Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

•     Must be able to pass a thorough background check for approval to work on Texas Bullion Depository (TxBD) systems, which are regulated and handle sensitive customer information.

The Ideal Candidate Will Demonstrate

•     A technical, logical thought process and strong systems thinking

•     Pragmatism — the judgment to choose the simplest solution that fits the problem

•     Strong problem-solving skills and a keen eye for detail

•     The ability to prioritize, drive work to completion, and meet deadlines

•     Influence without authority — leading through expertise and clear communication

US Gold Bureau — Compensation, Benefits and Perks

•     Compensation: Competitive base salary, plus annual bonus, commensurate with experience.

•     Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, STD, LTD

•     401k: 100% match up to 3% of contribution; 50% match for the 4th and 5th %; fully vested upon enrollment

•     Holidays: Up to 11 paid days per year

•     Events/Fun: Employee appreciation and recognition events and trips, monthly Social Squad events, seasonal and holiday events

REPORTS TO:  Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

DEPARTMENT: Technology

DIRECT REPORTS:  None (individual contributor)

HOURS OF WORK:  M–F, 8:30am–5:30pm (additional hours as required)

LOCATION:  Hybrid

TRAVEL:  None