Principal Engineer

SPAN Digital is a growing premium software product and consulting services company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with additional development offices in Cape Town, South Africa, and Guadalajara, Mexico. We have experience in a broad range of industries but are keenly focused on the technology, entertainment, and healthcare sectors. We strategize, design, and develop software solutions for our clients and customers from startups to global brands. We help engineering teams successfully overcome the challenges caused by the accelerating pace of change in software development, allowing them to build better digital solutions.

Our Services Teams work side-by-side with our client’s engineering teams to develop prototypes, proof-of-concepts, production services, and major product enhancements.

Our Product Teams leverage our unique vantage point to develop category-defining products that enable our customers’ teams to significantly outperform the competition.

We are currently looking for a Principal Engineer, based in Cape Town, to join our engineering discipline and play a key leadership role in building our capabilities. In addition, this role will be responsible for the technical leadership of one or more of our premier client engagements and drive the successful execution of our software development projects.

Role And Responsibilities

As a Principal Engineer at SPAN, your role encompasses a high level of autonomy, influence, and complexity in your work. You would be expected to work under broad direction, often initiating and leading activities. Your responsibilities would include:

1. Analyzing, designing, planning, executing, and evaluating work to time, cost, and quality targets.
2. Establishing milestones and playing a significant role in the assignment of tasks and responsibilities.
3. Leading the definition of goals and objectives for each initiative.
4. Ensuring we deliver business outcomes within budget while maintaining and improving quality.
5. Engaging clients and other engineers as an all-round problem solver.

Scope of Responsibility

Principal Engineers can integrate lessons learned and experience gained from their many years of practice into the problems they solve every day. They are seasoned professionals capable of scoping and designing entire systems, tackling complex technical problems, troubleshooting issues, and proposing effective solutions.

Growing Engineers and the Engineering Discipline

Principal Engineers are responsible for mentoring engineering staff and providing on-the-job training. They are expected to contribute to and drive the development of the engineering community at SPAN.

Engaging Stakeholders

Principal Engineers are experienced at engaging clients and customers, leading the scoping and design discussions, and acting as a trusted advisor. They collaborate with other teams such as product management, design, and operations to ensure alignment and successful delivery of projects. Effective communication skills are crucial for conveying technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Technical Mastery

Principal Engineers have experience in all aspects of the product development lifecycle, from inception through design, development, testing, deployment, and support. They are responsible for designing and architecting complex systems or components, considering scalability, performance, security, and other factors.

Leadership

Principal Engineers provide leadership by taking responsibility for the technical aspects of major projects or products and overseeing the tasks of our engineers.

Tolerance of Continuous Change

Principal Engineers thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, often assigned to multiple projects, and are responsible for driving continuous improvement initiatives within the engineering organization.

Technologies

Our full-stack polyglots are experienced in a combination of:

• TypeScript, NodeJs, ReactJs, and additional mainstream JS frameworks
• Python, Go, Java, Scala, C#
• PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis
• Kafka, RabbitMQ, Elasticsearch, and whatever else is required to satisfy our customers

Typical Activities

• Facilitate and lead solution and system architecture and design sessions
• Help our clients define their needs, goals and objectives
• Become a strategic advisor to clients and customers
• Foster trusting and collaborative relationships with our clients and customers
• Define development best practices and ensure they are followed
• Mentor engineering staff and help them execute their growth plans

You’ll love it here if:

• You are allergic to hierarchical, bureaucratic cultures
• You want to work with very smart people from different backgrounds
• You are a voracious learner & an eager teacher of others
• You want to be led from the front, not commanded from the rear
• You don't tolerate intra-office posturing or other negative behaviors
• You want to work on a broader array of interesting, challenging projects

What we offer:

• Flexible and generous work & leave schedule
• Hybrid-remote working model
• Learning organization based on a reverence for expertise & craftsmanship
• Friday catered lunches, on-site haircuts, pet-friendly workplace
• Charitable community initiatives, employee awards, and recognition
• MacBook Pro and home office allowance