Senior Principal Backend Engineer - GraphQL & Shopify

Shutterfly; Plano (TX); Remote; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus incentive

Health benefits

401K program

Job summary

Spoonflower, part of the Shutterfly family, seeks a Senior Principal Software Engineer to shape core backend services powering our commerce platform. You’ll own GraphQL federation services, drive Shopify integrations, and partner across teams to scale a made-to-order retail environment.

You will lead architecture, resolve complex production issues, and mentor engineers while aligning technical decisions with business impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend or platform engineering experience.
• Strong experience building and operating distributed systems and APIs at scale.
• Deep proficiency in GraphQL design and implementation, including federated/supergraph architectures.
• Experience with Shopify or similar eCommerce platforms.
• Strong experience with Node.js / TypeScript.
• Track record of diagnosing production failures down to runtime/transport level.
• Demonstrated ownership of production systems (performance, uptime, reliability).
• Ability to operate independently and drive high-impact work to completion.

Responsibilities

• Own design and evolution of core backend services and APIs supporting commerce workflows.
• Lead architecture and implementation of GraphQL services on Apollo Federation supergraph.
• Build and improve Shopify integrations (Storefront API, Admin API, webhooks, order lifecycle).
• Reconcile Shopify inventory/SKU model with made-to-order fulfillment flow.
• Define and improve service boundaries, data models, and integration points.
• Partner with frontend, product, and platform teams for simpler integration.
• Diagnose and resolve deep distributed-system and runtime failures.
• Own production systems, including operability, observability, and incident response.
• Act as a technical reference in design reviews and mentoring.

Skills

GraphQL

Node.js/TypeScript

Distributed systems

Shopify

Production ownership

System design

Communication

Tools

Apollo Federation

Kubernetes

Terraform

OpenSearch

AWS SNS/SQS

Job description

Spoonflower, part of the Shutterfly family, seeks a Senior Principal Software Engineer to shape core backend services powering our commerce platform. You’ll own GraphQL federation services, drive Shopify integrations, and partner across teams to scale a made-to-order retail environment.

You will lead architecture, resolve complex production issues, and mentor engineers while aligning technical decisions with business impact.