Principal Software Engineer: Lead Architecture & Scale

First AML; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Additional Annual Leave

Hybrid Role

Training Budget

Employee Shares

Parental Leave Support

Social Events

Wellbeing Programme

Coaching & Feedback

Central Office Location

Global Secondments

Job summary

First AML, Auckland-based, seeks a Principal Software Engineer to shape technical direction and scale our platform. You’ll blend deep backend expertise with strategic thinking and lead across multiple teams to deliver robust, secure services.

You’ll mentor engineers, drive architecture decisions, and collaborate with product, design and customer teams. The role emphasizes delivering high-velocity improvements while maintaining platform health in a fast-growing company.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in a senior Back End role.
• 5+ years as a technical leader in scaling teams.
• Proven track record influencing technical direction across teams.

Responsibilities

• Shape technical architecture to scale and manage debt.
• Mentor engineers and drive quality and continuous learning.
• Partner with Product, Design and Customer teams to translate problems.
• Design high-performance backend services and improve observability.

Skills

Senior Backend

Technical Leadership

Architectural Influence

People Leadership

Cross-functional Collaboration

Problem Solving

Tools

AWS ECS

PostgreSQL

GraphQL

TypeScript

React

Job description

First AML, Auckland-based, seeks a Principal Software Engineer to shape technical direction and scale our platform. You’ll blend deep backend expertise with strategic thinking and lead across multiple teams to deliver robust, secure services.

You’ll mentor engineers, drive architecture decisions, and collaborate with product, design and customer teams. The role emphasizes delivering high-velocity improvements while maintaining platform health in a fast-growing company.