Principal SW Engineer

Candescent is the leading cloud-based digital banking solutions provider for financial institutions. We are transforming digital banking with intelligent, cloud-powered solutions that connect account opening, digital banking, and branch experiences for financial institutions. Our advanced technology and developer tools enable seamless, differentiated customer journeys that elevate trust, service, and innovation. Success here requires flexibility in a fast-paced environment, a client-first mindset, and a commitment to delivering consistent, reliable results as part of a performance-driven, values-led team. With team members around the world, Candescent is an equal opportunity employer.

Role: Principal Engineer

Position Summary

We are seeking talented Principal Engineers to lead the architectural vision and evolution of our SaaS platform into a modern, resilient, and AI-powered ecosystem. This role plays a critical part in shaping our long-term technology strategy, providing cross-team technical leadership, and ensuring our platform is secure, scalable, performant, and data driven. Principal Engineers work across product domains to design efficient, future-proof solutions that align with strategic objectives, proactively reducing technical roadblocks and coordinating dependencies across teams.

A primary focus of this role is driving the consolidation of multiple banking products into a unified, extensible platform with a shared architecture—promoting consistency, operational efficiency, and accelerated innovation. The Principal Engineer will also guide the design of scalable APIs, enhance developer experience, and lead efforts to enable seamless integration with fintech partners, core banking systems, and third-party providers. This is a highly collaborative and strategic role for a forward-thinking engineer who is passionate about platform transformation and delivering long-term impact. This title may also be called Architect.

Key Areas of Responsibility

• Define and drive platform architecture strategy focused on scalability, modularity, security, and resilience
• Lead platform consolidation and modernization into a unified, extensible architecture
• Champion architecture best practices including domain-driven and event-driven design, and cloud-native principles
• Design secure, extensible API ecosystems for internal and external developers and fintech partners
• Define developer experience standards including sandbox environments, documentation, and onboarding flows
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Data teams to embed AI/ML, analytics, and personalization into platform capabilities
• Define and enforce standards for API governance, system design, observability, and security
• Evaluate emerging technologies for future adoption
• Collaborate with InfoSec, SRE, and DevOps to ensure reliability, compliance, and operational health
  
  

Product Design and Development

• Create and maintain architectural artifacts including solution blueprints, dependency maps, and design specifications
• Collaborate with Portfolio and Product leadership to align technology solutions with strategic business goals
• Establish and enforce technical standards, policies, and guidelines for product teams
• Work with product teams to ensure architectural alignment with product backlogs and technical direction
• Provide technical leadership through mentoring, code reviews, and guidance on architecture principles and design patterns
• Manage architectural risks and dependencies across teams and systems
  
  

Product Strategy, Vision, and Planning

• Develop automation and CI/CD strategy and communicate the vision to Product and Engineering Managers
• Advise Product Managers on DevOps enhancements, technical gaps, and product roadmap priorities
• Ensure technical solutions align with DevOps principles through close collaboration with engineering teams
  
  

Qualifications

• 14+ years of experience in software engineering and enterprise architecture
• Deep expertise in designing and managing API-first platforms and developer ecosystems
• Experience with fintech and banking standards including ISO 20022, Open Banking, and FDX
• Strong understanding of cloud-native technologies such as GCP, AWS, Kubernetes, containers, and service mesh
• Proficient in distributed systems, multi-tenancy, and event-driven architecture
• Hands-on experience integrating AI/ML into product and platform architecture
• Strong grasp of financial regulatory, security, and data compliance requirements
• Proven leadership in guiding high-performing engineering teams
• Expertise in SRE and DevOps practices including CI/CD tools like GitHub, Jenkins, and Google Cloud Build
• Strong collaboration and communication skills to lead cross-functional initiatives and articulate complex concepts
• Automation-first mindset with a drive to optimize delivery pipelines and eliminate manual processes
  
  

Statement to Third Party Agencies

To ALL recruitment agencies: Candescent only accepts resumes from agencies on the preferred supplier list. Please do not forward resumes to our applicant tracking system, Candescent employees, or any Candescent facility. Candescent is not responsible for any fees or charges associated with unsolicited resumes.

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