Principal Software Engineer Location: Greater Toronto Area (Hybrid) Role Overview An established and fast-growing technology organization is seeking an accomplished Senior Principal Software Engineer to lead the design and development of next-generation software platforms. This is a highly strategic engineering leadership position focused on building scalable, high-performance systems while driving technical excellence across the engineering organization. The ideal candidate will bring deep hands-on experience with modern backend and frontend technologies, cloud services, and relational databases. You will serve as both an architectural thought leader and a hands-on contributor, shaping the future of complex enterprise systems. Core Responsibilities Architecture & System Design: Architect and drive the development of highly scalable, resilient, and performant software platforms. Legacy Modernization: Lead modernization efforts for legacy components — including re-architecture and cloud migration — to align with modern software engineering principles. Technical Mentorship: Provide leadership and guidance to multiple engineering teams, setting high standards for code quality, design patterns, and best practices. Cross-Team Collaboration: Partner with product, QA, DevOps, and peer engineering teams to deliver cohesive and unified solutions across varied technology stacks and system maturity levels. Solutioning & Problem Solving: Analyze complex technical and business challenges, developing elegant and maintainable solutions. Code Quality & Governance: Conduct technical reviews and ensure adherence to engineering standards, architecture guidelines, and coding conventions. Innovation & R&D: Continuously evaluate new technologies, tools, and development methodologies to enhance team productivity and system capabilities. Required Experience & Skills Proven background as a Principal Engineer , Staff Engineer , or equivalent senior technical leadership role. Strong expertise in modern backend languages (Java or equivalent), frontend frameworks (Angular or React), and cloud platforms (AWS or comparable). Deep knowledge of relational database technologies such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or similar. Demonstrated track record in architecting and delivering distributed, large-scale enterprise systems. Experience aligning development standards across multiple teams with varying levels of codebase maturity. Solid understanding of modern software architecture patterns and engineering best practices. Excellent analytical skills with a focus on simplifying complex system designs. Strong communication and collaboration skills with the ability to influence across technical and non-technical stakeholders. Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. Preferred Qualifications Experience with microservices architectures and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes). Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps workflows. Demonstrated success mentoring engineers and growing technical talent across multiple teams.