Principal Engineer, Core Product

Jobtailor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Homebase is seeking a senior engineering leader to drive technical vision and architecture across Payroll, Scheduling, Time Tracking, and HR Management domains. You will define an architecture scalable to 100K+ SMBs and steer internal API strategy for speed and external integrations.

You will decompose core product systems into bounded services using domain-driven design and SOA, mentor engineers, and partner with leadership on roadmaps.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience and proven leadership across multiple domains.
• Deep expertise in domain-driven design, API design, SOA, and event-driven architectures.
• Active, high-leverage AI fluency with daily use of AI tools and teams adopting AI.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical vision and architecture across Payroll, Scheduling, Time Tracking, and HR Management domains.
• Lead decomposition of core product systems into well-bounded services using domain-driven design and SOA.

Skills

Senior leadership

Domain-driven design

API design

AI fluency

Distributed systems

SOA

Mentoring engineers

Communication

Influencing without authority

Technical strategy

Performance optimization

Test automation

Tools

Homebase API

Code generation tools

AI tools

Test automation tools

Job description

• Drive technical vision and architecture across Payroll, Scheduling, Time Tracking, and HR Management domains
• Create architectural coherence across domains serving 100K+ SMBs
• Champion and help deliver Homebase's API strategy for internal velocity, external integrations, and future partnerships
• Lead decomposition of core product systems into well-bounded services using domain-driven design and SOA principles
• Identify and resolve cross-cutting challenges involving data consistency, performance, and reliability
• Champion Engineering Excellence standards and patterns across teams
• Mentor senior and staff engineers
• Partner with Product, Data, Design, and Engineering leadership on roadmaps and technical strategy
• Experiment with and deploy or build AI harness capabilities for code generation and test automation
• Coach teams on effective AI adoption
• Measure and share the impact of AI-enabled improvements
• Contribute to AI platform efforts that improve product development speed and feature quality

Requirements

• 12+ years of software engineering experience
• Significant depth in scaling distributed systems and evolving legacy architectures
• Strong background in Ruby/Rails is ideal
• Track record of defining and executing technical strategy across multiple product domains or teams
• Experience mentoring engineers and guiding teams through architectural change
• Deep expertise in domain-driven design, API design, SOA, and event-driven architectures
• Experience with payroll, workforce management, or similarly complex business domains is a strong plus
• Ability to influence without authority
• Strong communication skills with engineers, PMs, and executives
• Active, high-leverage AI fluency; daily use of AI tools and experience helping teams adopt AI
• Comfort operating in a high-velocity environment where shipping fast and iterating matters

Core Competencies

Demonstrates extensive experience in software engineering with a focus on technical strategy, architecture, and AI integration. Proven ability to mentor teams and drive engineering excellence across complex domains such as Payroll and HR Management.

Highest-signal resume keywords

• 12+ Years Of Software Engineering Experience
• Ruby/Rails Expertise
• Domain-Driven Design
• API Design
• AI Fluency

Hard Skills

• Distributed Systems
• Legacy Architecture Evolution
• Event-Driven Architecture
• SOA Principles
• Technical Strategy Execution
• Architectural Change Guidance
• Data Consistency
• Performance Optimization
• Reliability Engineering
• Test Automation

Soft Skills

• Strong Communication Skills
• Influencing Without Authority
• Mentoring Engineers
• Coaching Teams
• Collaboration

Industry Keywords

• Payroll
• Workforce Management
• HR Management
• SMB Solutions
• Technical Vision

Tools & Technologies

• AI Tools
• Homebase API
• Code Generation Tools
• Test Automation Tools