Principal Software Engineer

ministrybrands; United States; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work option

Job summary

Ministry Brands is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join our growing team in Milton, GA. You will shape the long-term technical vision, architecture, and engineering excellence across our background screening platform, working with Product Management, Security, Architecture, and DevOps.

You will lead multi-team initiatives, mentor engineers, and drive modernization, cloud migration, and secure coding practices while delivering scalable, reliable software on AWS.

Qualifications

• Senior hands-on software engineer with PHP/LAMP experience.
• Experience designing scalable cloud-native architectures on AWS.
• Mentor engineers and establish engineering best practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive long-term technical vision and architecture.
• Lead design of scalable, secure cloud-native solutions on AWS.
• Collaborate with PM/Leadership to translate requirements into technical plans.
• Improve automation, CI/CD, testing, and observability across teams.
• Mentor engineers and enforce coding standards and reviews.

Skills

PHP

AWS

Linux

Apache/Nginx

MySQL

JavaScript

Cloud-native

Terraform

Tools

Terraform

CloudFormation

AWS CDK

Job description

Ministry Brands is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our growing team!

Who we are

Ministry Brands is a leading provider of SaaS operational management systems, payments platforms, digital engagement tools and background screening solutions for faith-based, non-profit and for-profit organizations. We serve more than 95,000 customers as a trusted partner in digital transformation and enablement - advancing missions, driving efficiencies, and building engaged communities for more than four decades. The diverse and real-world experiences of our team members serving their communities makes us stronger together and enhances our ability to advance digital transformation for the greater good.

Ministry Brands is committed to acknowledging and valuing our employee differences and to creating an environment in which every individual's unique strengths and abilities are developed and valued. Our employees share in the responsibility for creating this environment and demonstrate mutual respect and acceptance in the workplace. We welcome everyone and are dedicated to creating a culture where all our employees have equal opportunity to be heard and reach their full potential.

Available Location: Milton, GA

Hybrid Working: Team members are expected to come into the Alpharetta office as needed, based on business requirements and team collaboration needs. There is no fixed minimum number of in-office days; instead, attendance will be determined by project demands, meetings, and manager guidance. Any changes to your primary work location should follow the appropriate process as outlined in our handbook.

What You'll Do:

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will serve as one of the organization's most senior technical leaders, responsible for defining the long-term technical vision and architecture of our background screening platform. You will drive engineering excellence across multiple teams, influence product strategy through technology, and ensure our software solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, and maintainable.

You will partner closely with Product Management, Engineering Leadership, Security, Architecture, and DevOps to solve complex business problems while mentoring engineers and establishing engineering best practices. This role combines deep hands-on software engineering with technical leadership, architectural decision-making, and cross-functional influence.

Key Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership

  • Define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and engineering standards across multiple applications and services.
  • Lead the design of scalable, secure, cloud-native solutions using modern PHP/LAMP technologies and AWS.
  • Make architectural decisions that improve performance, reliability, maintainability, scalability, and security.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption strategies that improve engineering effectiveness and business outcomes.
  • Serve as the highest level technical escalation point for complex engineering challenges.
  • Drive technical roadmaps that align engineering investments with business objectives.

• Software Engineering

  • Design, develop, and maintain enterprise-grade applications using PHP, modern PHP frameworks, Linux, Apache/Nginx, MySQL, JavaScript, and related web technologies.
  • Lead modernization initiatives including application refactoring, cloud migration, monolith decomposition, framework upgrades, and technical debt reduction.
  • Develop highly available cloud applications utilizing AWS services including EC2, ECS, Lambda, RDS/Aurora, S3, ElastiCache, SQS, SNS, CloudFront, and related AWS technologies.
  • Optimize database performance through schema design, indexing strategies, query optimization, caching, and database architecture.
  • Develop highly testable, maintainable, and reusable software components.
  • Ensure software solutions meet performance, reliability, compliance, and security requirements.

• Engineering Excellence

  • Champion engineering best practices including clean architecture, SOLID principles, Domain-Driven Design, API-first development, and secure coding standards.
  • Establish and improve development standards, coding guidelines, testing strategies, and deployment processes.
  • Lead architecture reviews, code reviews, design reviews, and technical planning sessions.
  • Drive improvements in automated testing, observability, monitoring, and application performance.
  • Guide CI/CD strategy utilizing modern CI/CD platforms and Git-based development workflows.
  • Continuously improve build and release pipelines to increase deployment reliability and speed.
  • Promote Infrastructure as Code and automated AWS infrastructure provisioning using technologies such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or AWS CDK.

• Cross-Functional Leadership

  • Partner with Product Management to translate business objectives into scalable technical solutions.
  • Collaborate with Engineering Managers to prioritize technical investments and platform improvements.
  • Influence t