Principal Engineer & Technical Leader - Scalable Systems

Midwest Startups; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) plan

Paid vacation and holidays

Career development and growth

Job summary

Carefeed is seeking a Principal Engineer to join our Chicago-based software team. You’ll shape system architecture, drive technical strategy, and stay hands-on to deliver scalable back-end and full-stack solutions.

You’ll mentor engineers, lead architectural decisions, and guide a hybrid team across the U.S., including our Cincinnati HQ. If you thrive on high-impact projects in a fast-growing startup, we want to hear from you.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with backend or full-stack focus.
• 3+ years of engineering management experience as tech lead and people manager.
• Strong knowledge of AWS and modern infrastructure practices.
• Experience leading in hybrid teams across the U.S.

Responsibilities

• Own major architectural decisions and drive long-term technical vision.
• Write production-ready code and participate in code reviews.
• Coach team on software design, testing and operation.
• Design scalable, secure, resilient systems for rapid growth.
• Lead and mentor up to three engineers.

Skills

Technical leadership

Hands-on development

Mentorship

System design

Team collaboration

Tools

AWS

CI/CD

Code reviews

Job description

Carefeed is seeking a Principal Engineer to join our Chicago-based software team. You’ll shape system architecture, drive technical strategy, and stay hands-on to deliver scalable back-end and full-stack solutions.

You’ll mentor engineers, lead architectural decisions, and guide a hybrid team across the U.S., including our Cincinnati HQ. If you thrive on high-impact projects in a fast-growing startup, we want to hear from you.