Principal Software Engineer, Ruby on Rails

Role Overview

• Architect the Future: You will be the primary architect for our core platform, designing and leading the implementation of scalable, reliable, and highly efficient systems. Your decisions will directly impact our ability to grow and innovate. You will design, blueprint, and lead the development of our core platform, ensuring it is scalable, reliable, and efficient.
• Be a Technical Leader: As the lead engineer for your domain, you'll set the technical direction and raise the bar for code quality, design patterns, and operational excellence from conception through deployment.Serve as the lead engineer for the team, driving technical excellence, and raising the bar for quality from design to deployment.
• Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: You'll lead complex, cross-team initiatives that require technical alignment across multiple engineering teams and business domains. You will be the technical glue that ensures we execute on our most critical strategic priorities.Steer cross-team planning and execution for complex features that span multiple engineering teams and business domains
• Champion Best Practices: You'll be the subject matter expert on our software ecosystem, actively promoting architectural integrity and technical best practices. Your expertise will be crucial in building highly resilient and observable systems. You'll also provide a high-level of engagement across teams to address technical debt and promptly resolve incidents.Act as a subject matter expert on Forward’s software ecosystem, promoting technical excellence, modern design patterns, and architectural integrity across the organization.
• Mentor and Elevate: Improve the quality and efficiency of the engineering team through technical guidance, mentorship, and sponsorship, fostering a culture of ownership and continuous learning.
• Own the Ecosystem: Maintain a high level of engagement across multiple teams, build highly resilient and observable systems, promptly address bugs and incidents, and be a reliable and accessible leader.

Requirements

• 10+ years experience in technical leadership, mentorship, and sponsorship
• Deep expertise in designing and implementing complex, distributed backend systems, scalable architectures across multiple software applications and/or languages (Ruby on Rails required)
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Significant ability to influence others
• Passion for learning and self-development
• Typically has several years of experience in agile software development
• Experience with front-end architecture or a full-stack perspective, with an understanding of how backend services impact the end-user experience.
• Typically has a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field or additional relevant experience

Tech Stack

• Ruby
• Ruby on Rails

Benefits

• medical
• dental
• vision
• commuter benefits
• flexible time-off policy
• paid parental leave
• 401k match for US employees
• wellness reimbursement
• volunteering days
• annual professional development budget
• charitable donation match