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8th LightPrincipal Software Engineer (Remote)
8th Light is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join its team. Founded in 2006, 8th Light operates as a technology solutions consultancy partnering with clients…
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About This Role
8th Light is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join its team. Founded in 2006, 8th Light operates as a technology solutions consultancy partnering with clients ranging from early-stage startups to major global enterprises to address complex software challenges. In this role, the engineer will consult with clients, guide ambiguous technical initiatives, and architect scalable platforms. This position suits a seasoned technologist with over a decade of repeated success across…
Job Description
8th Light is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join its team. Founded in 2006, 8th Light operates as a technology solutions consultancy partnering with clients ranging from early-stage startups to major global enterprises to address complex software challenges. In this role, the engineer will consult with clients, guide ambiguous technical initiatives, and architect scalable platforms.
This position suits a seasoned technologist with over a decade of repeated success across diverse projects. The ideal candidate brings a combination of consulting acumen, product thinking, and technical expertise to drive impactful client outcomes. Responsibilities include building production-grade platforms, taking AI and agentic systems from prototype to production, advising executive leadership on architecture, and mentoring engineering teams. The engineer will typically work with one to two clients per year while contributing to the company's internal culture and continuous learning environment.
The annual salary ranges from USD 151,535 to USD 189,418, depending on geographic structure. 8th Light provides flexible paid time off, a learning and development program with O'Reilly access, an annual learning stipend, coworking support, and parental leave.
Responsibilities
- Build trust with clients quickly by showing technical expertise and understanding of their domain
- Drive platform engineering and platform strategy across various platform types
- Balance technology choices pragmatically to deliver high-quality work within deadlines
- Advise clients on architecture, scalability, and platform evolution
- Collaborate on machine learning lifecycle systems from data ingestion to model deployment and monitoring
- Surface new technical approaches and product solutions proactively
- Lead or initiate feedback conversations and retrospectives with teams and clients
- Design and manage high-level technical roadmaps for major engagements
- Coach client engineering teams and transfer knowledge to level up practices
- Influence client CTOs and executive decisions regarding technical strategy
Requirements
- Demonstrated long-term repeated success across a variety of projects over the course of 10 or more years
- Experience building and shipping production-grade platforms, infrastructure, tools, and workflows
- Experience taking AI and agentic systems from prototype to production with observability and authentication understanding
- Background delivering high-stakes consulting engagements across multiple language paradigms, stacks, and client industries
- Proficiency in developing production-grade software using languages and frameworks such as Java, C#/.NET, Python, TypeScript, JavaScript, React, Go, Ruby, Scala, R, and SQL
Qualifications
- Experience in platform engineering such as building internal developer platforms and reusable software foundations
- Experience in data engineering utilizing platforms like Databricks
- Experience delivering production agentic systems including RAG pipelines, vector search, and agentic frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, AutoGen, and n8n
- Experience in DevSecOps, DevOps, MLOps, and Infrastructure as Code
Core Skills
Benefits
- Robust learning and development program featuring unlimited access to thousands of books, courses, and expert-led training on the O'Reilly platform
- Annual financial stipend and time allotment for learning and development
- Coworking support
- Flexible paid time off
- Twelve weeks of new parent leave for eligible employees
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
Is this a remote position?
Yes, 8th Light is a remote-first company with a distributed team across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
What is the salary for the Principal Software Engineer role?
The salary varies depending on geographic location structures, starting at USD 151,535 and going up to USD 189,418 per year for Structure 1, with higher ranges available for other regions.
How many years of experience are required?
Candidates are expected to have 10 or more years of long-term repeated success across a variety of projects.
Sample Interview Questions
AI-generated questions tailored to this specific role — a preview of the full practice set.