Principal Engineer - Remote, Hands-On & ET Overlap

Foreplay; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Foreplay is seeking a hands-on Lead Engineer to guide a small distributed system team while also coding and shaping how the organization plans, builds, and operates software. You will split time between contributing code and mentoring four engineers, with ambitions to grow toward seven or eight as the system expands.

You will partner with product leadership to align technical initiatives with delivery priorities, maintain clear operational ownership, and manage releases.

Qualifications

• Balance hands-on engineering with team and system leadership.
• Experience owning distributed software systems.
• Ability to grow an engineering team and improve delivery.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to codebase while setting technical direction and delivery.
• Own an event-driven distributed system and guide its development.
• Grow the engineering team from four engineers toward seven or eight.
• Establish engineering practices that enable reliable delivery as the team grows.
• Work with product and management leadership to align technical decisions with product priorities.
• Maintain clear operational ownership and manage releases.

Skills

Hands-on coding

Distributed systems

Team leadership

Product alignment

Release management

Job description

Foreplay is seeking a hands-on Lead Engineer to guide a small distributed system team while also coding and shaping how the organization plans, builds, and operates software. You will split time between contributing code and mentoring four engineers, with ambitions to grow toward seven or eight as the system expands.

You will partner with product leadership to align technical initiatives with delivery priorities, maintain clear operational ownership, and manage releases.