Principal Software Engineer, Customer Tech

Wayfair; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 210,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid in-office 3 days/week

Job summary

Wayfair is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead cross-domain architectural strategy across front-end, back-end, and platform layers. You will partner with Engineering Directors, Product, Design, Applied Science, and Data Science to define multi-year roadmaps and hands-on implementations.

You will shape AI-enabled platform architectures, establish guardrails for safety and cost, and mentor senior engineers while driving scalable, reliable experiences for millions of Wayfair customers.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience and a track record of large-scale distributed systems.
• Staff or Principal-level leadership across multiple teams and domains.
• Strong judgment in system trade-offs, architecture, and delivery.
• Proficiency in Java, GraphQL/REST data federation, and modern web tech.

Responsibilities

• Define and communicate a multi-year architecture strategy and roadmaps.
• Architect and evolve high-scale distributed systems across frontend, backend, and platform stacks.
• Drive ADRs, architecture reviews, prototypes, and critical technical decisions.
• Design AI-enabled platform architectures and guardrails for safety and cost.

Skills

Java

GraphQL/REST

Distributed systems

React/Next.js

Cloud/native

Observability

AI APIs

Tools

Next.js

React

Node.js

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Job description

Location: Mountain View, CA, Seattle, WA, or Boston, MA (Hybrid - this role requires being in-office 3 days per week in one of these locations)

Wayfair's Customer Tech organization is the product and engineering engine behind how tens of millions of customers discover, evaluate, personalize, and purchase for the home across web and app. Customer Tech teams own the end-to-end consumer experience from the first moment of inspiration through purchase and beyond. Customer Tech is accountable for the strategies, systems, and design craft that determine whether Wayfair is the destination customers return to.

We're hiring a Principal Software Engineer to drive cross-domain and end to end technical leadership across the org - operating at the intersection of large-scale distributed systems, native app, web and platform infrastructure, and rapid AI adoption. You will set multi-year architecture strategies, simplify ambiguous problem spaces, and guide engineering teams around a cohesive technical vision to ensure Wayfair builds scalable, performant, and reliable experiences for millions of users.

The Opportunity

Customer Tech is organized into four superpods: Growth, Discovery, Purchase, and Platforms. Together, they power the full customer journey from acquisition and discovery to purchase and post-purchase. Platforms provide the technology foundation for scalable, seamless experiences.

This is a strategy-first, high-influence technical leadership role. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will establish high-impact architectural standards across our front-end, back-end, and distributed platform stacks. Your primary partners will include Customer Tech Engineering Directors, Product & Design Leadership, Applied Science, and Data Science. You will also partner with the broader engineering leadership and engineering community within Wayfair; your job is to connect technical decisions directly to customer needs and business outcomes.

Crucially, we want someone who is actively thinking about building scalable architectures that are AI and Agent ready to drive Agentic adoption for both developers and Wayfair consumers. How should Wayfair's technical ecosystem, data federation layers, APIs, and developer workflows evolve to support AI-driven experiences and autonomous capabilities? You will be expected to have an opinionated point of view, prototype solutions, and drive the execution to make that platform vision a reality.

What You'll Own

Technical Strategy & Architectural Vision

• Define and communicate a compelling multi-year architecture strategy and practical technical roadmaps across multiple engineering domains and superpods.


• Simplify complex, highly ambiguous problem spaces where no clear ownership or path forward exists, establishing reference architectures and clear technical plans.


• Architect and evolve high-scale, distributed systems across our stack, including GraphQL/REST APIs, data federation, Next.js/React front-end infrastructure, and cloud-native services.

Architectural Judgment & Technical Excellence

• Make explicit, high-judgment trade-offs between delivery speed, performance, maintainability, scalability, site reliability, cost, and developer experience.


• Drive hands‑on execution by authoring Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), conducting architecture/code reviews, building prototypes, and validating critical technical assumptions.


• Convert recurring system pain points and incident root causes into durable, platform-level fixes and operational standards across the organization.

AI Platforms & Developer Innovation

• Design and evaluate AI-enabled platform architectures, including tools, agent frameworks, context management, data readiness, and agent-friendly APIs.


• Establish guardrails for AI safety, latency, cost optimization, and responsible AI usage across customer-facing and platform surfaces.


• Drive AI-assisted software development practices to improve engineering productivity, testing, and delivery velocity across Customer Tech.

Influence, Leadership & Talent Development

• Build alignment across complex, matrixed environments, resolving deep technical disagreements among senior engineers, product leaders, and executives without relying on positional authority.


• Mentor Staff and Principal-level engineers, cultivate future technical leaders, and foster active engineering communities of practice.


• Represent Customer Tech's architectural vision to executive engineering leadership, translating technical health investments into measurable business outcomes.

What We’re Looking For

Experience & Technical Scope

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems.


• Proven Staff or Principal-level technical leadership across multiple independent teams, domains, or engineering organizations.


• Demonstrated scope, judgment, system adoption, and business impact over tenure alone.

Technical Stack Fluency

• Back-End & Distributed Systems: Strong foundation in Java, GraphQL/REST data federation, event-driven architectures, services, and API contract design.


• Front-End & Application Platforms: Deep proficiency with React, Node.js/Next.js, JavaScript/TypeScript, and modern web infrastructure at scale.


• Infrastructure & Operations: Cloud-native systems, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, site reliability engineering (SRE), SLOs, and observability.


• AI Technology: Hands-on experience or familiarity with generative AI APIs, agent frameworks, and AI-assisted development tools.

Strategy, Execution & Leadership

• Systemic Execution: Record of driving strategies from concept and architecture through implementation, production launch, and org-wide adoption.


• Business & Metrics Orientation: Ability to tie architectural choices directly to customer metrics, conversion, latency, reliability, or developer efficiency.


• Collaborative Influence: Outstanding communication skills with a history of aligning engineering, product, and business partners around shared technical direction.

Why Wayfair & Customer Tech

This is a rare opportunity to shape the technology foundation that powers how tens of millions of customers experience home - one of the highest-consideration, most emotionally resonant categories in consumer commerce. You will have the scope, technical complexity, and executive access to drive system-wide impact, modernizing engineering platforms while defining how AI integrates into modern e-commerce architectures.

Wayfair is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic and are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the application, interview, and employment process.

Assistance For Individuals With Disabilities

Wayfair is fully committed to providing equal opportunities for all individuals, including individuals with disabilities. As part of this commitment, Wayfair will make reasonable accommodations to the known physical or mental limitations of qualified individuals with disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on business operations. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, please let us know by completing our Accomodations for Applicants form.

About Wayfair Inc.

Wayfair is one of the world's largest online destinations for the home. Whether you work in our global headquarters in Boston, or in our warehouses or offices throughout the world, we're reinventing the way people shop for their homes. Through our commitment to industry-leading technology and creative problem-solving, we are confident that Wayfair will be home to the most rewarding work of your career. If you're looking for rapid growth, constant learning, and dynamic challenges, then you'll find that amazing career opportunities are knocking.

No matter who you are, Wayfair is a place you can call home. We're a community of innovators, risk-takers, and trailblazers who celebrate our differences, and know that our unique perspectives make us stronger, smarter, and well-positioned for success. We value and rely on the collective voices of our employees, customers, community, and suppliers to help guide us as we build a better Wayfair - and world - for all. Every voice, every perspective matters. That's why we're proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Your personal data is processed in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Notice (https://www.wayfair.com/careers/privacy). If you have any questions or wish to exercise your rights under applicable privacy and data protection laws, please contact us at [e-mail].