Principal Software Engineer

Standard Template Labs is a stealth-mode, AI-native startup reimagining the future of IT Service and Configuration Management. Backed by leading investors, we're leveraging AI, graph-based architecture, and exceptional design to transform how enterprises manage and engage with their technology ecosystems.

About the Role
We're seeking an experienced Principal Software Engineer to help drive the technical vision, architecture, and execution across our core platform. This role is ideal for someone who combines deep technical expertise with a strategic mindset and a passion for building high-quality, scalable systems.

As a Principal Engineer, you will not only build foundational components yourself, but also shape the engineering culture, mentor peers, and influence product and infrastructure decisions. You’ll be a key partner to leadership in scaling our platform and team from the ground up.

Responsibilities

• Architectural & Strategic Leadership

  • Own the architecture of critical systems — defining technical direction, aligning it with product strategy, and ensuring long-term scalability and maintainability

  • Make high-impact technical decisions that influence the roadmap across engineering, data, and infrastructure teams

  • Serve as a key engineering stakeholder in cross-functional planning, partnering with product, design, and business leads to identify opportunities and tradeoffs

  Technical Execution & Hands-On Development

  • Design and build complex, distributed systems that are performant, secure, and fault-tolerant

  • Write clean, efficient, and well-tested code — leading by example in software craftsmanship

  • Champion and evolve our engineering standards, processes, and tooling

  • Guide adoption of modern technologies, patterns, and AI-based development practices, including code generation tools

  Mentorship & Influence

  • Mentor and support engineers across multiple teams, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement

  • Lead architectural reviews, design discussions, and technical deep-dives with the broader engineering team

  • Help grow and recruit top-tier technical talent as we scale

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of delivering large-scale, high-impact systems

• Proven success in owning architecture and technical direction across multiple teams or domains

• Extensive experience mentoring engineers and shaping engineering culture and best practices

• Strong knowledge of distributed systems, cloud-native infrastructure, system design, and performance optimization

• Expertise in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Rust, Java, Python, C++) and a strong grasp of software architecture principles

• Deep understanding of scalable data systems, relational and NoSQL databases, and caching strategies

• Familiarity with CI/CD, observability tools, and modern operational practices.

• Personal or professional experience with AI-assisted development (e.g., Claude, Cursor, Windsurf) is a plus — our development process is AI-native

Nice to Have

• Experience designing or scaling event-driven and microservices architectures

• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes)

• Prior experience in high-throughput, low-latency, or real-time systems

• Open-source contributions or a strong portfolio of publicly visible work

What We Offer

• The opportunity to architect foundational features for an AI-first enterprise platform.

• The opportunity to take ownership of critical systems that scale to millions of users

• A culture that values craftsmanship, autonomy, and technical excellence

• Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits package

• Work from our Midtown Manhattan office alongside the founding team in a focused, collaborative environment. We're in-office five days a week, moving quickly and building together—with easy access to public transportation

As an equal opportunity employer, we don’t tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind. Whether that’s based on race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, citizenship, religion, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, veteran status or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state or local laws.