Principal Software Engineer

Social Leverage LLC; New York (NY); Remote; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

SOC 2 or regulated environments

AI/architecture open source talks

Job summary

Seeds is a remote-first fintech startup seeking a Principal Software Engineer to own the architecture of a major platform component and guide multiple workstreams. You will report to the CTO and collaborate with product, investments, and leadership on the platform's future.

You will build across the stack (backend, frontend, data, cloud) and mentor senior engineers, ensuring architecture, security, and data correctness in a regulated environment while delivering high-impact features.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience building and evolving production systems.
• Track record of setting technical direction without formal authority.
• Expertise in at least one area (cloud, AI, or data) with production impact.
• Broad architecture range across backend, frontend, data, and cloud.
• Experience defining problems and trade-offs with stakeholders.
• Experience with audited, regulated systems.
• Fluency with AI-assisted development using agents like Claude Code.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to influence engineers, product, and executives.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent).

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture of a major part of our platform.
• Build across the stack, shipping features and services.
• Set direction where none exists and frame technical problems.
• Shape the roadmap with product and the business.
• Make technology and build-versus-buy decisions.
• Set the bar for architecture, security, and data correctness.
• Develop other senior engineers through design reviews and mentoring.
• Bridge engineering and the investment business as the engineering voice.

Skills

Production systems

Technical direction

Deep domain expertise

Full stack architecture

Problem framing

Audited systems

AI-assisted development

Communication

CS/Engineering degree

Education

CS/Engineering degree

Tools

C#/.NET

React/TypeScript

PostgreSQL

AWS

Job description

Seeds is a fast-growing early-stage RIA fintech startup on a mission to empower financial advisors to supercharge their business growth while delivering a meaningful investing experience for their clients!
At Seeds, our core values are the heartbeat of our Company: Trust is our currency and we champion transparency, active listening, collaboration, and a spirit of polite disruption. We’re dedicated to pursuing excellence in all that we do. Our clients are the heroes in our story, and we strive to make their needs the focal point of our innovative solutions.
We are eager to welcome ambitious, energetic, and curious-minded individuals to join our innovative and passionate team where every contribution is appreciated, different perspectives are valued, and every voice matters. As a remote-first company, we pride ourselves on having a strong work ethic while embracing flexibility, a healthy work-life balance, and the freedom to work from anywhere in the U.S. You’ll have the chance to collaborate with a small talented team with extensive experience and knowledge in financial services, technology, and startups. Together, you’ll be at the forefront of wealth tech innovation, committed to reshaping a $6.6+ trillion industry and fostering meaningful connections between individuals and their finances.

The Role

We’re hiring a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical direction of a major part of our platform, such as our data foundation, our cloud platform, or the intelligence we’re building into the product. Several workstreams will build on the architecture you set, and you’ll keep shipping features alongside the team.
You’ll report directly to the CTO and work with product, investments, and company leadership on where the platform goes next.

What You’ll Do

• Own the architecture of a major part of our platform, setting the direction several workstreams build on and carrying it through over years, including what to retire.
• Build across the stack, shipping features and services alongside the team, plus the prototypes, reference implementations, and hardest parts of the systems you design.
• Set direction where none exists, deciding which technical problems are worth solving, framing them, and making the case to engineering, product, and leadership.
• Shape the roadmap with product and the business, spotting where our technology can set us apart from competitors and making the case for changing the plan.
• Make the technology and build-versus-buy decisions that commit us for years, weighing cost, risk, and what our team can operate.
• Set the bar for architecture, security, and data correctness across workstreams, in a regulated financial-services business where every number we show an advisor has to be right and auditable.
• Develop other senior engineers, using design reviews, pairing, and direct mentoring so other engineers can make these calls without you.
• Bridge engineering and the investment business, becoming the engineering voice our investment and advisor-facing teams seek out on domain and regulatory questions.

Successful Candidates Will Have

• Extensive experience building and evolving production systems, typically 12+ years, including setting the architecture for a major product or platform area that several teams built on.
• A track record of setting technical direction without formal authority, with proposals others adopted and decisions you saw through for years.
• Deep, demonstrated expertise in at least one area, whether cloud architecture and infrastructure on AWS or a comparable cloud, agentic software development where agents do production engineering work under guardrails and evaluation, or building AI capabilities into a product platform.
• Broad architecture range across back end, front end, data, and cloud, and the ability to be productive in our stack (C# / .NET Core, React / TypeScript, PostgreSQL, AWS) or a comparable one.
• Experience defining problems nobody had framed yet, choosing what not to do, and explaining the trade-offs to people who disagreed.
• Experience with systems where correctness is audited, ideally in a regulated industry.
• Fluency with AI-assisted development, building with agents like Claude Code daily, with a clear point of view on where they belong in how a team builds software.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including design proposals that move decisions with engineers, product, and executives.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

Bonus

• financial services, FinTech, or wealth-tech, especially portfolio management, trading, or performance reporting
• SOC 2 or comparable regulated environments
• a public body of work on architecture or AI in engineering, such as writing, talks, or open source
• modernizing legacy platforms

How We Work With AI

We build hands-on with AI coding agents like Claude Code, and our expectations are:

• AI is an enhancement, not a replacement. A strong engineer with AI is the bar; AI does not lower the bar for engineering judgment, design sense, or accountability.
• You own your output. No “the model wrote it” — you are the accountable owner of everything you ship, with the same standard you’d hold for hand-written code.
• You help