Position Purpose:
The Principal Software Engineer will be a key player in the modernization of our store checkout experience, driving the transition from legacy POS systems to modern technologies. With expertise in Java and React, youll contribute to our products’ design, development, and lifecycle, ensuring seamless integration with payment processors, customer loyalty, pricing, and inventory systems. You will define service-level objectives (SLOs), create reusable code components, and produce architectural documentation.
As a senior technical leader, youll mentor junior engineers, foster cross-team collaboration, and engage with third-party vendors and the open-source community. This role requires strong leadership skills, focusing on shaping product direction and setting technical standards. Retail and checkout experience are essential for guiding the future of our POS systems.
This leadership-focused role balances technical expertise with strategic oversight, empowering you to drive innovation in a key product area.
Key Responsibilities:
70% Delivery & Execution
Collaborates and pairs with other product team members (UX, engineering, and product management) to create secure, reliable, scalable software solutions
Documents, reviews and ensures that all quality and change control standards are met
Writes custom code or scripts to automate infrastructure, monitoring services, and test cases
Writes custom code or scripts to do “destructive testing” to ensure adequate resiliency in production
Creates meaningful dashboards, logging, alerting, and responses to ensure that issues are captured and addressed proactively
Contributes to enterprise-wide tools to drive destructive testing, automation, or engineering empowerment
Identifies product enhancements (client-facing or technical) to create a better experience for the end users
Identifies unsecured code areas and implements fixes as they are discovered with or without tooling
Identifies, implements, and shares technical solutions that can be used across the organization
Creates and architects foundational code elements that can be reused many times by a product
Creates meaningful architecture diagrams and other documentation needed for security reviews or other interested parties
Defines Service Level Objectives for product to constantly measure their reliability in production and help prioritize backlog work
20% Support & Enablement:
Fields questions from other product teams or support teams
Monitors tools and participates in conversations to encourage collaboration across product teams
Provides application support for software running in production
Proactively monitors production Service Level Objectives for products
Works with vendors and the open-source community to help identify and implement feature enhancements in software products
Works with other product teams to create API specifications and contracts for shared data
Proactively reviews the performance and capacity of all aspects of production: code, infrastructure, data, and message processing
Triages high priority issues and outages as they arise
10% Learning:
Participates in and leads learning activities around modern software design and development core practices (communities of practice)
Learns, through reading, tutorials, and videos, new technologies and best practices being used within other technology organizations
Attends conferences and learns how to apply new technologies where appropriate
Direct Manager/Direct Reports:
Typically reports to the Software Engineer Manager or Sr. Manager, Technology Director or Sr. Director.
Travel Requirements:
Typically requires overnight travel less than 10% of the time.
Physical Requirements:
Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.
Working Conditions:
Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.
Minimum Qualifications:
Must be eighteen years of age or older.
Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.
Mastery of an object-oriented programming language (preferably Java)
Must be legally permitted to work in the United States
Preferred Qualifications:
6-8 years of relevant software engineering architecture experience, strongly focusing on POS and checkout systems.
Expertise in Java and React development, particularly in managing and modernizing store checkout experiences. Experience with Next.js, TypeScript, Spring or Quarkus, Redis, and Kubernetes preferred.
Proven ability to lead modernization efforts, with POS experience preferred.
Experience in developing and optimizing mobile web applications for self-checkout solutions.
Deep understanding of payment processor integration, and interfacing with customer loyalty programs, pricing systems, and inventory management.
Strong background in owning the store checkout experience, ensuring seamless and efficient operations.
Experience designing and implementing scalable, high-performance POS systems using modern technologies and architectures.
Expertise in developing and maintaining RESTful web services and microservice architectures for checkout-related functionality.
Proficiency in version control systems (preferably Git) and CI/CD pipelines to ensure smooth development and deployment processes.
Strong problem-solving skills and ability to optimize checkout processes for performance, security, and efficiency.
Familiarity with cloud platforms and automation edge computing patterns to support modern POS infrastructure.
Ability to provide leadership in POS modernization, mentoring junior engineers, and ensuring the successful execution of key product initiatives.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills, particularly in cross-functional teams, interfacing with third-party vendors and the open-source community.
Minimum Education:
The knowledge, skills, and abilities typically acquired through completing a bachelor’s degree program or equivalent degree in a field of study related to the job.
Preferred Education:
No additional education
Minimum Years of Work Experience:
6
Preferred Years of Work Experience:
No additional years of experience
Minimum Leadership Experience:
None
Preferred Leadership Experience:
None
Certifications:
None
Competencies:
Action Oriented: Taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with a sense of urgency, high energy and enthusiasm
Business Insight: Applying knowledge of business and the marketplace to advance the organization’s goals
Collaborates: Building partnerships and working collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives
Communicates Effectively: Developing and delivering multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences
Cultivates Innovation: Creating new and better ways for the organization to be successful
Drives Results: Consistently achieving results, even under tough circumstances
Global Perspective: Taking a broad view when approaching issues; using a global lens
Interpersonal Savvy: Relating openly and comfortably with diverse groups of people
Manages Ambiguity: Operating effectively, even when things are not certain or the way forward is not clear
Manages Complexity: Making sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to solve problems effectively
Nimble Learning: Actively learning through experimentation when tackling new problems, using both successes and failures as learning fodder
Optimizes Work Processes: Knowing the most effective and efficient processes to get things done, with a focus on continuous improvement
Self-Development: Actively seeking new ways to grow and be challenged using both formal and informal development channels
Situational Adaptability: Adapting approach and demeanor in real time to match the shifting demands of different situations