Principal Software Engineer

Minneapolis, MN
Full Time
Experienced

Principal Engineer

Location: Remote / Minneapolis Hybrid

About Us

Parallax helps digital agencies plan, track, and optimize their projects and teams in real time. As a small but ambitious engineering organization, we value clear ownership, deep technical craftsmanship, and an unrelenting focus on delivering delightful experiences to our customers.

We’re looking for a Principal Engineer who will help shape the technical direction of our platform and mentor a team of full-stack engineers. You’ll work across our C#-based modular monolith, our frontend using TypeScript/React, and our AI products in Python. But we are more interested in your demonstrated history of technical leadership and your approach to your craft than how many years of any given technology you have under your belt. 

Everyone on the team is empowered and expected to take ownership of building an awesome product, operating what we’ve built, and making smart decisions. As the most senior technical leader on the team, you’ll communicate clearly with product and design partners, deliver working software efficiently, and raise the bar on code quality and scalability. 

If you thrive in an agile environment, are unafraid to tackle ambiguous problems, and have a genuine curiosity about AI agents and how they are re-defining how SaaS companies provide value, we want to talk to you.


What You’ll Do

  • Lead Full Stack Architecture
    • Work with the team to drive continual evolution of our core C#/.NET backend services, our TypeScript/React frontend applications, and our AI agents and other tooling written in Python.
    • Refine and implement best practices around software design, service design, and scaling of our solution.
    • Ensure we can operate what we build, and do it efficiently. Our work must incorporate the right mix of tools to ensure we achieve our goals for security, quality, and DevOps.
  • Drive Agentic AI
    • Build, deploy, and operate products tools—such as intelligent task automation, natural-language insights, or guided workflows—using Python and relevant ML/AI frameworks.
    • Collaborate with product and design to identify new experiences that can delight our users by deploying new technologies, such as AI agents.
    • Advocate for responsible, reliable AI integration: small, incremental experiments, thorough evaluation, and user feedback loops.
  • Mentor and Elevate the Team
    • Coach and collaborate with engineers of all levels on code reviews, design discussions, and architecture decisions.
    • Foster a culture of continuous learning: facilitate whiteboard sessions, lead retrospectives, and evangelize strong engineering principles.
    • Lead by example: write production-quality code, champion testing, and encourage clear documentation.
  • Collaborate with Cross-Functional Partners
    • Work closely with product management to define feature requirements, develop our roadmap and execute launch plans.
    • Partner with product management and design on UX/UI to ensure our user flows are intuitive and performant.
    • Identify and debate tradeoffs in clear terms with your team, senior leadership, and stakeholders.


What We’re Looking For

  • Proven Startup Mentality
    • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in a senior or principal role at a startup or high-growth environment.
    • Demonstrated ability to build and operate production systems, iterate quickly, and handle shifting priorities.
  • Deep Full Stack Expertise
    • Strong proficiency in building scalable, maintainable backend services in technologies such as C#/.NET, Node.js, Ruby/Rails, Python, Java, etc. We love polyglots.
    • Advanced skills in JavaScript and/or TypeScript and modern frontend libraries/frameworks (React, Angular, etc.) for crafting responsive, accessible, and well-tested component-driven UIs.
    • Solid understanding of relational and NoSQL databases—designing schemas, writing performant queries, and managing migrations.
    • A track record of operating and supporting what you’ve built, with DevOps experience including tools like Docker, Terraform and Kubernetes that deploy to cloud environments, such as Azure, AWS, or GCP.
  • Ownership & Bias for Action
    • Eager to take on a problem with fuzzy requirements and drive it to completion – independently or collaboratively, as appropriate.
    • Passionate about learning about our industry, our customers, how their businesses work, and how you can build products that make their lives better.
    • Comfortable owning a service or feature from design through deployment. No task is too small or too large.
  • Eager to Learn
    • Genuine curiosity for finding new ways to improve your craft and explore new tools. For example, how are you using AI to make your team and your own developer experience more efficient?
  • Passion for AI Agents
    • Genuine interest in AI agent architectures, LLMs, and related technologies.
    • AI Agent experience, either professionally or via personal side projects.
  • Engineering Leadership & Communication
    • Track record of mentoring engineers, running design reviews, and influencing technical roadmaps.
    • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills: you can explain complex technical decisions clearly to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
       


Nice-to-Haves

  • Extensive experience in our current tech stack.
  • Expertise with both relational and semi-structured data types in Postgres.
  • Familiarity with event-sourced architectures.
  • Exposure to data analytics tools/architectures and data-driven decision making.
  • Knowledge of security and compliance best practices (OWASP, SOC2, etc.).
     


Our Tech Stack

  • Backend: C# / .NET Core microservices, RESTful APIs, PostgreSQL, Redis
  • Frontend: TypeScript, Next.js, MobX, Tailwindcss, Material UI, Tsyringe
  • AI: Python, FastAPI, LangChain, OpenAI, Anthropic
  • Infrastructure: Azure, Terraform, Google Cloud Platform
  • Collaboration: GitHub (repos + Actions), Slack, Azure DevOps


Why Join Us

  • Competitive Comp: We offer competitive base salary as well as stock options, full health benefits, and a 401k program with a 5% company match.
  • Impact & Ownership: As our Principal Engineer, you will steer the technical vision of our entire stack. Your ideas won’t get lost in bureaucracy—you and your team will ship code that our customers use every day.
  • Fast-Paced Learning: In a lean startup, every problem you solve and every experiment you run accelerates our growth. You’ll learn new technologies, tackle ambiguous challenges, and see the direct impact of your work.
  • AI Playground: We’re in the early stages of integrating AI agents into our product. If you’re passionate about exploring the frontier of “intelligent assistants” and what they can do for SaaS, we want you to help us learn.
  • Collaborative Culture: We are a small team that values empathy, transparency, and constructive feedback. We believe diverse perspectives help us build better products.
  • Compensation & Benefits: Competitive salary, equity package, comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage, generous PTO, flexible work hours.
     


Equal Employment Opportunity 

We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome our employees' differences, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status. Difference makes us better. Join us.

Share

Apply for this position

Required*
Apply with Indeed
We've received your resume. Click here to update it.
Attach resume as .pdf, .doc, .docx, .odt, .txt, or .rtf (limit 5MB) or Paste resume

Paste your resume here or Attach resume file

Human Check*