Principal Software Engineer

| About us:

Foodsmart is the leading telenutrition and foodcare solution, backed by a robust network of Registered Dietitians. Our platform is designed to foster healthier food choices, drive lasting behavior change, and deliver long-term health outcomes. Through our highly personalized, digital platform, we guide our 2.2 million membersincluding those in employer-sponsored health plans, regional and national Medicaid managed care organizations, Medicare Advantage plans, and commercial insurerson a tailored journey to eating well while saving time and money.

Foodsmart seamlessly integrates dietary assessments and nutrition counseling with online food ordering and cost-effective meal planning for the entire family, optimizing ingredients both at home and on the go. We partner with national and regional retailers across the U.S., many of whom accept SNAP/EBT, making healthier food more accessible. Additionally, we assist members with SNAP enrollment and management, providing tangible access to nutritious food.

In 2024, Foodsmart secured a $200 million investment from TPGs Rise Fund, which supports entrepreneurs dedicated to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This investment will help us expand our reach, particularly to low-income workers who are disproportionately affected by diet-related diseases.

At Foodsmart, our mission is to make nutritious food accessible and affordable for everyone, regardless of economic status. We are committed to a set of core values that shape our culture and work environment:

Customer First - You start with the member and work backwards.

Make It Happen - You act with urgency, use data, and hold high standards.

One Team - You collaborate with respect and commit as a group.

Whether you're a dietitian, a commercial leader, or a technologist, working at Foodsmart means being part of a team that is passionate, supportive, and driven by a shared purpose. Join us in transforming the way people access and enjoy healthy food.

| About the role:

As a Principal Engineer, you are a technical authority and multiplier across Foodsmarts engineering organization. You will architect, evolve, and scale backend and data platforms that power our consumer experiences, clinical workflows, and partner integrations.

This is not a people-manager role, but a senior technical leadership position. You will influence engineering direction across teams, guide senior engineers, partner closely with product and leadership, and ensure Foodsmarts backend systems are resilient, secure, and future-ready.

You are expected to operate with org-wide impact, shape long-term architecture, and influence executive-level technical decisions, consistent with Principal Engineer expectations.

You will:

Technical Architecture & Platform Leadership

• Own and evolve the front end, backend and data platform architecture powering Foodsmarts web and mobile applications.
• Design highly scalable, fault-tolerant, and secure distributed systems supporting millions of users and sensitive healthcare data.
• Define and drive adoption of backend architectural patterns, data models, and integration standards across teams.
• Lead design reviews and author RFCs for complex, cross-team initiatives; guide teams through trade-offs and long-term implications.
• Ensure systems meet enterprise-grade requirements for availability, performance, observability, and compliance.

Backend & Data Engineering Excellence

• Design and maintain durable SQL and NoSQL data stores, event-driven pipelines, and data processing systems.
• Lead development of high-performance APIs (REST and event-based) that serve frontend applications, mobile clients, and external partners.
• Drive backend solutions using TypeScript / Node.js, AWS-native services (Lambda, SQS, RDS, DynamoDB, EC2), and cloud data platforms.
• Guide best practices in data modeling, migrations, consistency, and reliability at scale.
• Partner with security and compliance stakeholders to ensure HIPAA-aware and privacy-first system design.

AI-First & Modern Engineering Practices

• Champion AI-assisted engineering workflows across design, implementation, testing, and DevOps.
• Help define guardrails, governance, and best practices for responsible AI usage in backend development.
• Identify opportunities to leverage AI/ML capabilities within backend systems (e.g., personalization, automation, optimization).
• Stay ahead of emerging technologies and evaluate their applicability to Foodsmarts platform roadmap.

DevOps, Reliability & Scalability

• Drive cloud-native, containerized architectures using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Partner with DevOps to strengthen CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and deployment safety.
• Establish standards for observability, alerting, incident response, and postmortems.
• Proactively identify and mitigate scalability, performance, and reliability risks before they impact users.

Cross-Team & Executive Influence

• Work across product, design, data, clinical, and business teams to translate complex requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Act as a trusted technical advisor to engineering leadership and executives.
• Influence roadmap decisions through data, technical insight, and long-term thinking.
• Build credibility inside and outside the organization through clear communication and strong technical judgment.

Mentorship & Engineering Culture

• Mentor senior, staff, and rising engineers on system design, technical decision-making, and influence without authority.
• Raise the technical bar through code reviews, design feedback, and coaching.
• Drive a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning across the organization.

You have:

Experience & Seniority

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with sustained impact on large-scale backend or platform systems.
• Demonstrated success operating at Staff / Principal Engineer level in complex, distributed environments.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and domains.

Technical Expertise

• Proven experience leading AI-assisted product and engineering workflows across the full SDLC, enabling faster design, PRD creation, story breakdown, code development, testing, and DevOps execution while maintaining enterprise-quality, security, and compliance standards.
• Demonstrated ability to build AI-first engineering cultures, establishing guardrails, governance, and enablement so designers, product managers, engineers, and DevOps teams effectively use AI as a productivity multiplier aligned with business outcomes.
• Deep hands-on expertise with TypeScript / Node.js in production-grade systems.
• Strong experience designing and operating RESTful APIs and event-driven architectures.
• Advanced knowledge of SQL (PostgreSQL/MySQL) and NoSQL systems; experience with cloud data warehouses (e.g., Redshift) is a plus.
• Extensive experience with AWS (Lambda, SQS, RDS, EC2, IAM, networking).
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, consistency models, caching, concurrency, and performance optimization.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes in production environments.
• Familiarity with frontend frameworks (React/Angular) to collaborate effectively on end-to-end architecture.

Engineering Leadership Skills

• Strong understanding of SDLC, Agile, CI/CD, QA automation, and DevOps best practices.
• Ability to lead through influence rather than authority.
• Clear, structured communicator capable of explaining complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.
• Track record of driving adoption of shared platforms, patterns, and best practices.

Bonus / Nice to Have

• Experience in healthcare, fintech, or other regulated domains.
• Exposure to low-code platforms like Retool.
• Experience working with globally distributed teams.

Signals of Success

• Org-wide adoption of architectures, patterns, or platforms you design.
• RFCs and designs that shape long-term technical direction.
• Trusted advisor to senior engineering leadership and executives.
• Measurable improvements in system reliability, scalability, and developer productivity.
• Mentorship impact on senior and staff engineers.
• External technical credibility through talks, blogs, or partnerships