Principal Software Engineer

The role

The Principal Software Engineer sets architectural direction across the Assessments group. This role involves owning end-to-end decisions, writing technical specifications, and coaching senior engineers.

What you will do

• Set architectural direction across Assessments domains and align with engineering strategy.
• Own decisions end to end and drive them to resolution with a date attached.
• Write and maintain tech specs, design records, and decision docs.
• Define boundaries between services and adjacent domains.
• Lead build-versus-buy evaluations with third-party vendors.
• Coach and sponsor senior and staff engineers.
• Set the standard for using AI in engineering work.
• Shape reliability and testing strategy across the group.

Required qualifications

• 10 or more years building and operating production software, several of them at staff level or above.
• A track record of architecture decisions driven to completion across more than one team.
• Clear technical writing.
• Evidence of growing other senior engineers through mentoring or sponsorship.
• Proficiency with building and maintaining software on cloud native platforms.
• Comfort with ambiguity.
• Judgment about scope to delegate work at other levels.

Nice to have

• Experience with assessment, learning, or education technology systems.
• Experience consolidating or replacing a legacy system while it stays in production.
• Multi-tenant, sharded, or high-volume platform experience.
• Experience with Ruby on Rails
• AWS

Benefits

• Competitive compensation
• Ownership program for all full-time employees
• Flexible work culture
• Generous time off, including local holidays and annual Dim the Lights period
• Comprehensive wellness programs and mental health support
• Learning and development resources, including professional development tools and tuition reimbursement
• The technology and tools needed to do work
• Motivosity employee recognition program

Before you apply

• All employees must pass a background check.
• Identity verification measures implemented.
• Candidates may be asked to verify legal name, current physical location, and provide a valid contact number and residential address.

About the company

Instructure aims to amplify the power of people to grow and succeed by creating intuitive products that simplify learning and personal development.