Principal Software Engineer — Flexible Schedule & Impact

Cigna; Paterson (NJ); On-site; USD 181,000 - 266,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Mentorship

Benefits

Flexible schedule

Job summary

At Cigna, a Senior Principal Software Engineer in Paterson, NJ will tackle complex, scalable problems across the tech stack. You will optimize performance, improve CI/CD pipelines, and mentor engineers through real Rails and Kotlin workloads.

You’ll translate vague product needs into concrete, shippable services and drive reliability through better test automation. This temporary role emphasizes ownership, scrappy execution, and a path toward scalable, durable solutions for Paterson teams.

Qualifications

• Written communication clear enough to survive a forwarded email chain.
• 9+ years building trust the slow, unglamorous way.
• Ability to learn new technology systems quickly and apply them effectively.
• Grit to debug at 4pm on a Friday without complaint.

Responsibilities

• Optimize application performance, latency, and resource utilization at scale.
• Maintain and improve CI/CD infrastructure across NJ engineering teams.
• Mentor the principal cohort through their first real Ruby on Rails on-call at Cigna.
• Enhance test automation frameworks to increase release confidence.
• Carry features from whiteboard sketch to Paterson, NJ production without dropping the baton.
• Read RabbitMQ stack traces others skim past, and trace bugs to their root.
• Translate fuzzy product wishes from Cigna stakeholders into shippable Kotlin services.

Skills

Written communication

Trust-building

Grit under pressure

Learning agility

Paterson network

Tools

Kotlin

Ruby on Rails

TypeScript

RabbitMQ

Job description

At Cigna, a Senior Principal Software Engineer in Paterson, NJ will tackle complex, scalable problems across the tech stack. You will optimize performance, improve CI/CD pipelines, and mentor engineers through real Rails and Kotlin workloads.

You’ll translate vague product needs into concrete, shippable services and drive reliability through better test automation. This temporary role emphasizes ownership, scrappy execution, and a path toward scalable, durable solutions for Paterson teams.