Principal Engineer

Eliassen Group; Indianapolis (IN); Remote; USD 124,000 - 138,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental

Vision

401k with match

Life insurance

Job summary

Eliassen Group is seeking a hands-on Principal Engineer to shape the onboarding platform while actively coding. The role emphasizes architectural leadership, scalability, security, and AI integration across the SaaS stack in a remote setting.

This contract-to-hire opportunity offers a W2 arrangement with benefits and a path to full-time employment. Applicants must reside in Colorado, Utah, or Florida per the client requirements.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building/operating production SaaS platforms.
• Experience as Staff/Principal/Lead Engineer or similar leadership role.
• Strong architectural design in cloud-native environments.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction and partner with product/business teams.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architectural direction across the platform.
• Lead scalability, reliability, security and future product innovation decisions.
• Write production code daily and contribute to feature development.
• Design, build, and support scalable SaaS applications.
• Architect AI-powered capabilities and proofs of concept for customer use cases.
• Collaborate with Product Leadership, Engineering Leadership, Customer Success, and Sales.

Skills

Architectural direction

Software engineering leadership

Cloud-native systems

AI integration

Product collaboration

Tools

Go (Golang)

React

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

API design

AI toolchains (OpenAI/Anthropic)

Job description

Principal Engineer

Anywhere

Type: Contract-to-Hire

Category: Development

Industry: Technology

Workplace Type: Remote

Standard Hours: Open

Reference ID: JN -092026-108729

Date Posted: 09/22/2026

Shortcut: http://careers.eliassen.com/DqIg7c

• Description

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Description

Remote

Must reside in Colorado, Utah, or Florida

Our client seeks a hands-on Principal Engineer to shape the future of its customer onboarding platform while remaining engaged in daily coding. The role requires driving architectural decisions, leading technical innovation, building proofs of concept, influencing product strategy, and partnering with Engineering, Product, Customer Success, and Sales to embed AI capabilities across the platform and solve complex customer challenges. The engineer will join a team of approximately ten and serve as a key technical voice influencing the organization’s direction.

This is a contract to hire opportunity. Applicants must be willing and able to work on a w2 basis and convert to FTE following contract duration.

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• 401k with company matching
• life insurance

Rate: $90.00 to $100.00/hr. w2

JN -092026-108729

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architectural direction across the platform.
• Make strategic technical decisions impacting scalability, reliability, security, and future product innovation.
• Guide platform evolution while balancing speed, simplicity, and long-term maintainability.
• Identify technical risks before they become business problems.
• Write production code daily and contribute directly to feature development.
• Design, build, and support scalable SaaS applications.
• Lead implementation efforts for complex customer and platform initiatives.
• Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and provide technical mentorship.
• Help define and implement AI strategy and AI-powered capabilities using modern LLM architectures.
• Develop proofs of concept for customer-facing AI use cases.
• Architect solutions supporting customer-managed AI, including BYOM and BYOK.
• Evaluate emerging technologies including MCP architectures, AI agents, orchestration frameworks, and enterprise AI infrastructure patterns.
• Operate as a Product Engineer and partner closely with Product Leadership, Engineering Leadership, Customer Success, and Sales.
• Engage with customers to understand onboarding challenges and build demonstrations and prototypes.
• Translate customer requirements into platform capabilities and support strategic initiatives.

Experience Requirements

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building and operating production SaaS platforms.
• Experience as a Staff, Principal, Lead Engineer, or similar technical leadership role.
• Strong architectural design experience within modern cloud-native environments.
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams and systems.
• Experience partnering with Product and business stakeholders to drive outcomes.
• Proven ability to balance technical excellence with business priorities.
• Core technologies: Go (Golang), React, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, cloud-native and distributed systems.
• Preferred: AI/LLM integration, OpenAI or Anthropic platforms, MCP concepts, agentic AI frameworks, vector databases and retrieval, enterprise AI security and governance, API platform design and integrations, Salesforce ecosystem integrations.
• Success profile: product-thinking mindset focused on customer outcomes, ownership of ambiguous challenges, clear communication of technical tradeoffs, influence through expertise and execution, proactive risk identification, and comfort operating in fast‑moving environments.

Recruitment Transparency Notice

Eliassen Group values transparency in our recruitment practices. Please be advised that Eliassen Group utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) tools as part of its initial application screening and hiring process. You may receive email and SMS notifications from the Eliassen Virtual Recruiting Team ([e-mail], 781-808-2924) inviting you to complete a brief voice screening as part of your application process. These tools assist our hiring teams in different ways, including but not limited to, assistance in reviewing application materials to help identify candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the position. All AI-assisted evaluations and responses are reviewed by human recruiters before any hiring decisions are made. The use of AI in our process is intended to support fairness, efficiency, and consistency, and Eliassen Group takes measures to prevent bias or discrimination in connection with its hiring practices. By proceeding, you acknowledge, agree, and consent to Eliassen Group’s use of these tools, including AI tools, as part of the application and hiring process.

Skills, experience, and other compensable factors will be considered when determining pay rate. The pay range provided in this posting reflects a W2 hourly rate; other employment options may be available that may result in pay outside of the provided range.

W2 employees of Eliassen Group who are regularly scheduled to work 30 or more hours per week are eligible for the following benefits: medical (choice of 3 plans), dental, vision, pre-tax accounts, other voluntary benefits including life and disability insurance, 401(k) with match, and sick time if required by law in the worked-in state/locality.

• medical (choice of 3 plans)
• dental
• vision
• pre-tax accounts
• other voluntary benefits including life and disability insurance
• 401(k) with match
• sick time if required by law in the worked-in state/locality

When you work with Eliassen Group, all email communication will come from an Eliassen.com address, never Gmail, Yahoo, etc.

Eliassen Group will never ask you for personal information (home address, bank account, or check routing number) until you have worked with someone clearly associated with Eliassen Group.

If you have any indication of fraudulent activity, please contact [e-mail].

About Eliassen Group

Eliassen Group is a strategic consulting firm that helps organizations reach further and achieve more through our technology, business advisory, and life sciences solutions. For nearly 40 years, we have combined exceptional people, deep domain expertise, and intelligent capabilities to expand our clients’ capacity and accelerate meaningful outcomes. We are driven by a purpose to positively impact the lives of our employees, clients, consultants, and the communities we serve.

Eliassen is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are an Equal Opportunity and affirmative action employer and all employment decisions are based on merit, performance, and business needs. Eliassen does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender identity or expression, sexual preference or orientation, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), marital status, creed, religion, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, age, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, prohibited criminal record inquiries of applicants and employees, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.

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