Principal Engineer (Full - Stack / Platform / Data)

Job Title: Principal Engineer (Full-Stack / Platform / Data)

Location: Cape Town, South Africa (Hybrid or On-site)

Open to relocation within South Africa for the right candidate

Role Overview

We are hiring a Principal Engineer to lead the evolution of our platform across infrastructure, data, backend, and frontend systems. This is a senior, hands-on role focused on solving complex technical challenges while shaping long-term architecture and engineering direction.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and drive system architecture across frontend, backend, data, and infrastructure
• Make high-impact technical decisions with long-term scalability in mind
• Contribute hands-on across the stack when needed (backend, frontend, data, infrastructure)
• Design and maintain cloud infrastructure and deployment systems
• Architect data models and pipelines that support both product and analytics
• Improve reliability, observability, and developer experience
• Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar across teams
• Partner with leadership on technical strategy and execution

Experience

• 10+ years of hands-on software engineering experience
• Proven experience designing, building, and scaling complex, production systems
• Demonstrated experience working across backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure domains

Key Competencies

• Strong backend engineering experience (APIs, distributed systems, service design)
• Solid frontend engineering experience with modern frameworks (e.g., React) and performance optimization
• Proven experience designing and operating data systems (data modeling, pipelines, storage)
• Deep experience with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD systems, and observability tooling
• Technical Ability
• Strong technical judgment and ability to make high-quality tradeoffs
• Track record of influencing technical direction and mentoring engineers
• Clear and effective communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders

Nice to Have

• Leadership
• Strong technical judgment and ability to make high-quality tradeoffs
• Track record of influencing technical direction and mentoring engineers
• Clear and effective communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience in high-growth or scaling environments
• Experience building internal platforms or developer tooling
• Experience balancing product delivery with platform/infrastructure investment