Principal Software Engineer

SmithRx is a rapidly growing, venture-backed Health-Tech company dedicated to transforming the Pharmacy Benefit Management sector. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will lead technical initiatives, influence strategies across teams, and ensure the quality and scalability of systems while mentoring engineers.

Responsibilities:

• Define and align technical strategies for multi-year, multi-team initiatives with broader company goals
• Own technology decisions for large-scale architectures, including frameworks and build-versus-buy choices for key components
• Design systems with high reliability, scalability, and long-term maintainability, incorporating staged validation plans where necessary
• Ensure engineering quality through regular health reviews, curated testing strategies, and technical documentation that supports maintainability independent of your expertise
• Drive overall testing strategies for systems requiring high reliability or quality, including creating validation frameworks or systems
• Design platforms with long-term maintainability and embedded ML components, ensuring anomaly detection and NLP features were both scalable and production-ready
• Collaborate with machine learning engineers to design, validate, and deploy ML-based anomaly detection systems, ensuring performance met system SLAs
• Employ systems-level mindset to integrate ML in production environments
• Partner with Directors, product managers, and design leadership to ensure alignment on technical strategy and business objectives
• Collaborate with stakeholders to identify and deliver new business opportunities enabled by technical capabilities
• Influence product decisions, scope, and technical trade-offs to prioritize customer value without compromising quality
• Drive technical choices that have sweeping implications across the engineering organization, rallying teams around clear rationales and technical visions
• Proactively identify and refocus engineering efforts when projects are off-course or not driving meaningful business impact
• Partner with senior leadership to define a long-term vision for engineering teams that aligns with business and market opportunities
• Serve as a mentor and technical guide for engineers at all levels, fostering a culture of learning and growth
• Champion engineering excellence by setting high standards for system design, coding, testing, and operational practices

Requirements:

• BS or advanced degree in computer science or applicable experience
• 15 years required, or 12+ years with an advanced degree of software engineering experience, including leading large-scale, complex systems or initiatives
• Expertise in system architecture, including design for scalability, reliability, and maintainability
• Proficiency in evaluating build-versus-buy decisions and choosing frameworks/tools for diverse use cases
• Proven ability to design systems that address ambiguous or novel challenges, using research and validation plans to guide execution
• Experience driving the overall health and quality of systems, including testing strategies and technical documentation
• Strong ability to influence and align technical and product strategies across teams and stakeholders
• Deep technical expertise in software design and architecture
• Experience with Machine Learning concepts and their application in software systems
• Familiarity with Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and their use cases
• Experience in developing and deploying anomaly detection algorithms
• Exceptional problem-solving and decision-making skills, especially in situations with no clear 'right' answer
• Strong communication skills to rally teams, explain complex concepts, and build alignment across organizations
• A track record of identifying opportunities to meet customer needs through technical capabilities and driving meaningful results