Principal Software Engineer- Backend (Admin Workflows)

Madrona Venture Labs; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Significant equity opportunities

Hybrid work model

Collaborative culture

Job summary

Madrona Venture Labs is hiring a Principal Backend Engineer for the Admin Workflows team in the Seattle area. You will own the systems that turn admin ideas into AI-first training experiences, building reliable content integrations, an agent framework, and content creation workflows for enterprise use.

You will design scalable backends, mentor engineers, and collaborate with product to deliver measurable impact on learner outcomes.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional development experience shipping and operating production systems.
• Deep backend expertise with end-to-end services and setting technical direction.
• Track record of designing distributed systems and scalable APIs.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure as Code.
• Proficiency in TypeScript or Python with debugging distributed systems.
• Clear communicator who leads collaborations across engineering and product.

Responsibilities

• Own backend systems that power AI-first admin workflows.
• Ingest content from customer systems and power agent framework.
• Build content creation workflows for admin experiences.
• Collaborate with product to deliver reliable, enterprise-scale systems.

Skills

Backend expertise

Distributed systems design

API design

Cloud infrastructure

TypeScript or Python

Leadership / mentorship

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience

Tools

Kubernetes

NoSQL databases

Google Cloud Platform

Terraform / IaC

Job description

About this team

As a Principal Backend Engineer on the Admin Workflows team, you will own the systems that turn an admin's ideas and raw materials into engaging, AI‑first training in minutes. Your role is to make that magic more powerful and 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, enabling customers to 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.

Extra credit experience

• Experience with LLMs, generative AI, and AI‑powered applications.
• Speech/audio processing technologies.
• NoSQL databases and Kubernetes.
• Google Cloud Platform.

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!).