Principal Software Engineer

Yoodli AI Roleplays; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity opportunities

Hybrid work in Seattle

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Yoodli AI Roleplays is seeking a Principal Backend Engineer for the Admin Workflows team in the Greater Seattle Area. You will own scalable, reliable backend services and drive technical direction to enable enterprise‑scale training and AI‑powered analysis for admins.

You will design and own distributed systems and APIs, build content integrations, mentor engineers, and partner with product to deliver secure, maintainable systems that produce real learner impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional development experience shipping and operating production systems.
• Deep backend expertise with end‑to‑end ownership of services and setting technical direction.
• Experience designing distributed systems and scalable APIs and mentoring engineers.
• Proficiency with cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code.
• Proficiency in TypeScript or Python and debugging distributed systems.
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration and communication.

Responsibilities

• Own scalable, reliable backend services and drive technical direction.
• Design distributed systems and APIs that scale.
• Build content integrations and enterprise‑grade workflows for admin use cases.
• Mentor engineers and raise the engineering bar.

Skills

Backend architecture

Distributed systems

Mentorship & leadership

Cloud infrastructure

TypeScript or Python

Effective communication

Business outcomes focus

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Kubernetes

NoSQL databases

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS/Azure)

Job description

About this team

As a Principal Backend Engineer on the Admin Workflows team, you'll own the systems that turn an admin's ideas and raw materials into engaging, AI‑first training in minutes. Your job is to make that magic more powerful and more reliable at enterprise scale: building the content integrations that ingest source material from the systems customers already use, the agent framework that powers those roleplays, and the content creation workflows at the heart of our admin experience. You’ll also help tell the story of the impact of Yoodli through AI‑powered analysis and analytics – feedback and skills intelligence integrated deeply enough that customers can measure real improvement of their learners, not just activity.

What we’re hoping you bring:

Mission alignment: You believe in our vision and care deeply about helping people achieve more by communicating better.

Backend expertise: You have deep experience architecting scalable, reliable backend services and setting technical direction that levels up an entire team.

Comfort with ambiguity: You thrive on tough, open‑ended product problems, unreliable LLMs, and challenging architectures – and you bring order to them.

Customer‑centric thinking: You architect right‑sized solutions – secure, maintainable, and built with the end user in mind.

Craft and quality: You hold yourself to a high bar for code quality and system design, and you make the engineers around you better.

About you:

• 8+ years of professional development experience shipping and operating production systems
• Deep backend expertise – you've architected and owned services end‑to‑end, and set technical direction in fast‑moving environments
• Track record of designing distributed systems and APIs that scale, and of raising the engineering bar through mentorship and technical leadership
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and Infrastructure as Code
• Proficiency in TypeScript or Python, with the ability to debug complex distributed systems
• Clear communicator who effectively leads collaborations across engineering and product, and who gives and receives feedback well
• You understand how your work connects to business outcomes and user impact
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• This role is hybrid with an expectation of 3 days a week in the office – you’ll need to be based in the Greater Seattle Area.
• Experience with LLMs, generative AI, and AI‑powered applications
• Speech/audio processing technologies
• NoSQL databases and Kubernetes

What’s in it for you?

• Huge impact opportunity: Define technical strategy and build foundational systems at a fast‑growing startup
• Competitive compensation: Significant equity opportunities at a venture‑backed company
• Base compensation: $180k – $210k
• Work directly with the founding team and shape the future of AI‑powered communication coaching
• Join a fun, inclusive and highly motivated team culture (and help define it!)