Principal Developer

We’re looking for a well-rounded, seasoned Principal Engineer to join Coconut! Reporting to our VP of Engineering, Principal Engineers at Coconut will work together with the CTO, Product, Security, and the entire engineering team to improve the product and address the most difficult technical challenges. Principal Engineers should become an SME in multiple domains relevant to Coconut and our industry. You will represent senior technical leadership within our organization. You should have the desire to solve problems, mentor, and elevate an engineering team.

This role asks that you develop a deep understanding of our product, and not only rely on your advanced technical skills, but also on the ability to collaborate effectively across multiple teams. A Principal Engineer focuses on solving our current technical issues, having the instinct to anticipate needs and ensure our solutions fit into the future technical vision of the product. A Principal Engineer also reaches beyond immediate technical needs, looking for ways to have a broader impact. The successful candidate for this role will have a strong understanding of software development practices, architecture, stay up to date with the latest best practices in software development, and possess the ability to identify technical and delivery dysfunctions and champion solutions to address them.

We don’t need you to be an expert in PHP or React but you must be willing to learn as you go and you’ll have our full support on this journey.

• We innovate on top of a modern solution stack consisting of web technologies (such as React and Laravel) utilizing a RESTful architecture, and backed by relational DBs (MariaDB and PostgreSQL) and deployed using Docker and Kubernetes in an AWS environment.
• We don't follow rigid Scrum, but we do work in an agile, iterative way, and continuously improve and implement what works for us
• Blameless culture and a continuous improvement mindset

YOU’RE FIRED UP TO

Demonstrate Technical Ownership 

• Contribute to determining the functionality, performance, scalability, and reliability of our products
• Lead the research, scoping, design, and planning of technical initiatives with realistic implementation schedules
• Help senior engineering leaders drive department goals, create strategic roadmaps, and identify priorities to meet business objectives
• Contribute to and guide software architecture 
• Participate in the development and testing of functionality in collaboration with team members, while providing technical advice and guidance
• Provide design documents and documentation to ensure efficient maintenance, knowledge transfer and code reuse
• Articulate status/dependencies/blockers proactively and effectively, while subscribing to a customer-first approach to software development
• Deep dive and uncover or foresee technology and organizational needs 
• Troubleshoot and solve technical problems of the highest scope, complexity, and ambiguity for your department
• Where possible, become the center for innovative ideas and opportunities between several teams, with a willingness to experiment and confront large and complex problems
• Analyze engineering challenges and develop solutions to resolve issues

Be a Nomad

• You won’t just have one team to call “home,” you’ll do work across the engineering  teams as the need calls for it 
• With time, you’ll become a Coconut SME in specific product areas and drive critical objectives and projects within those areas focusing on our business needs
• Collaborate and make recommendations across several teams, and help the team  make evidence-based decisions in alignment with our strategic plans
• Work with engineering managers to understand areas of concern and help identify solutions

Be a Leader 

• Lead by example - act in accordance with our CHEERS values
• Mentor, coach, and elevate the members of the engineering team 
• Guide members to remove blockers and encourage collaboration 
• Demonstrate and set technical standards and best practices, as if creating a center of excellence within the engineering department
• Have the desire to constantly improving your own technical and product knowledge, and empower other developers to do the same 
• Review engineering’s work, provide critical feedback, even managing up when necessary, to all members of the team
• Identify and determine improvements in our SDLC and how the product and engineering teams operate
• Contribute to the hiring, onboarding, and development of new team members 
• Provide technical expertise and guidance to the engineering team improving quality of deliverables

WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TEAM

• 15+ years proven experience in shipping multiple products, preferably within multiple roles
• Full-stack development, deployment, and testing across multiple web platforms
• Adept at simplifying complex codebases with concern toward maintainability
• Mastery at ramping up quickly in new languages and frameworks
• Experience in automating development, understanding when best to implement
• Extensive knowledge of multiple programming paradigms and software development methodologies, understanding when best to apply different approaches (TDD, DD, etc.) 
• Strong understanding of GIT and associated workflows (pull requests, code reviews)
• Experience writing / working with REST and associated technologies (JWT, JWE, etc)
• Experience with javascript (React, Redux) and CSS,  PHP 7+, Laravel or Symfony, MariaDB / MySQL is preferred but not required
• Exceptional communication skills - be able to convey your thoughts, ideas, and projects effectively across the organization; even to non technical audiences 
• Ability to create thorough technical documentation and articulate design decisions driving alignment throughout the department and company (as needed)
• Ability to connect the dots between systems and problems and communicate the impacts and recommendations to the team
• The desire to be a large proponent of an organization’s engineering culture and influence the adoption of better practices
• Proven leadership skills - having mentored, coached, or unblocked members on a team, as well as encourage them to strive for best practices
• Experience in or knowledge of the Financial Industry would be a bonus