Sr. Principal Engineer

Wonder; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 305,000 - 330,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

401(k)

Medical/Dental/Vision

Paid time off

Job summary

Wonder is seeking a Senior Principal Engineer to help stand up a new AI-enabled development team in Washington, DC. You will design and build AI-native tooling, integrate external patterns, and drive efficiency in developer workflows from code generation to documentation.

This role requires strong design chops, collaboration across teams, and the ability to operate in ambiguity. You will lead tooling initiatives, shape standards, and ensure scalable integration of AI into Wonder's engineering

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including recent work with LLM-based tooling such as agents, MCP servers, coding assistants, or similar.
• Experience integrating AI tools into real development workflows beyond basic usage.
• Strong system design skills and ownership of tools or platforms end-to-end.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship AI-native developer tooling, including context aggregation, MCPs/CLIs, and sub-agents.
• Define and stand up autonomous development agents and cloud agent solutions.
• Develop APIs, webhooks, or other integration mechanisms to connect AI tooling with Wonder's codebases.

Skills

LLM tooling

AI tooling

System design

API design

CI/CD tooling

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in CS

Tools

Java/JVM

Python

Job description

Sr. Principal Engineer### Sr. Principal EngineerApply: District of Columbia: Full time: Posted Today: JR101449**About The Opportunity**We're looking for a Senior Principal Engineer to help stand up this team from its earliest days and bring AI-enabled development practices to Wonder Engineering. You'll design and build solutions to solve context fragmentation, MCPs/CLIs, skills, sub-agents, and integrations that connect AI tooling to Wonder's codebases and systems, and the AI-assisted workflows — code generation, review, testing, documentation, refactoring, on-call/incident management — that engineers use every day.We’re looking for someone who brings proven AI-tooling developer patterns and practices from outside Wonder that we haven't yet discovered internally. You'll partner closely with the team's other engineers across the company, each of whom owns a distinct part of the developer-experience surface area, and with the platform, infrastructure, and application teams whose workflows you're improving.**The Impact You Will Make*** Build AI-Native Developer Tooling: Design and ship Context aggregation solutions, MCPs/CLIs, skills, and sub-agents that give AI coding tools sanctioned, reliable access to Wonder's codebases, services, and systems. Help define and stand up Wonder's autonomous development agents and cloud agent solutions.* Bring Outside Patterns In: Bring a sharp point of view on where AI-assisted development actually creates leverage across review, testing, code generation, and documentation, and translate the best emerging practices into standards that fit Wonder's stack, scale, and constraints.* Raise the Ceiling on Review: Contribute to pre-review and triage tooling that clears and automates mechanical and policy issues before a human looks, and help define standards for reviewing AI-generated code.* Instrument for Efficiency, Not Just Adoption: Design and implement the systems that optimize AI costs across the org and abstract model selection away from engineers' day to day, so the platform routes each task to the right model at the right cost without every engineer having to reason about it. Help define and measure Developer velocity.* Guide Technical Outcomes: Scope, design, and ship developer tooling with minimal oversight, weighing tradeoffs and partnering with platform, infrastructure, and application teams to land it in production.* Communicate Effectively: Write clear specs and documentation, and provide, seek, and incorporate feedback from a team and organization still defining its own practices.**What You Bring to the Table*** Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.* 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including recent, hands-on work building with or on top of LLM-based tooling (agents, MCP servers, coding assistants, or similar).* Direct experience integrating AI tools into real development workflows — code review, testing, code generation, or documentation — beyond individual use as an end user.* Strong system design skills and a track record of owning tools or platforms end-to-end, from design through adoption.* Comfort operating with ambiguity: this is a new team without established playbooks, and you'll be shaping them.* Experience designing and consuming APIs, webhooks, or other integration/message-based systems.* Experience building developer tooling, internal platforms, CI/CD systems, or other software used by engineers as its primary users.* Experience with Java/JVM and/or Python is a plus, though not required.* A pragmatic approach to problem solving and the ability to troubleshoot complex technical obstacles.* Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to drive technical discussions with engineers and leaders across multiple teams. DC Base Salary: $305,000 - $330,000. Wonder uses geographic-specific salary structures, which means the salary offered may vary depending on where the job is located. The final salary offer will take into account various factors, such as the candidate's skills, education, training, credentials, and experience. **Benefits** The benefits applicable to this role include a competitive compensation package with equity and a 401(k). We also offer a choice of medical, dental, and vision plans, company paid short and long term disability coverage, paid time off including flexible time off for exempt employees, paid vacation for non-exempt employees, and paid sick leave in compliance with applicable law in addition to paid parental leave, discounted meals and exclusive perks across the Wonder family of brands. Eligibility, effective dates, and available plan options vary by employment classification and location. To learn more about benefits for this role, visit our Careers page here.**A Final Note**At Wonder, we build the best teams by hiring with an objective lens — evaluating people for their potential while championing diversity, equity, and inclusion. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, military service eligibility, veteran status, marital status, disability, or any other protected class. As part of our commitment to fair and compliant hiring practices, Wonder participates in the federal government's E-Verify program to confirm employment eligibility. If you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let your recruiter know.**We look forward to hearing from you! We'll contact you via email or text to schedule interviews and share information about your candidacy**.Wonder is the mealtime platform built to feed every craving without compromise. With options including dine-in, delivery, pickup, and meal kits, Wonder makes every mealtime effortless.Through the Wonder app, customers can combine hundreds of dishes from exclusive, chef-developed concepts in a single order so everyone gets exactly what they’re craving.Wonder’s portfolio of brands includes meal-kit pioneer Blue Apron, leading online food marketplaces Grubhub and Seamless, and Emmy-winning media company Tastemade. Together, we're united by a single mission: to make great food more accessible.There has never been a more exciting time to join our world-class team. We’ve brought together people who are changing the way the world eats — with grit, optimism, care, and a little bit of salt, and pepper. And we're just getting started.