Principal Software Engineer

Zócalo Health is a tech-enabled, community-oriented primary care organization serving underserved populations. The Principal Software Engineer will be responsible for building and owning the Zócalo technology platform, driving architectural vision, leading AI strategy, and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities:

• Drive the architectural vision for our platform, including the evolution of event-driven patterns, service boundaries, performance expectations, and long-term scalability
• Lead AI strategy within engineering, including the adoption of AI-accelerated developer tooling, code generation, automated testing, and pipeline automation to improve delivery speed and quality
• Own greenfield architectural decisions, including technology selection, service design, and infrastructure strategy, establishing the foundation the team will build on for years
• Provide leadership across application, network, and infrastructure security, including secure coding practices, OWASP considerations, and integration of DAST, SCA, and SAST tooling
• Work with product to refine MVP scope, introduce instrumentation where appropriate, and measure feature usage and return on investment
• Drive team SDLC processes, including feature management, testing practices, pull request quality, CI/CD pipelines, security posture, performance benchmarks, usability, and developer experience tooling enhanced with AI
• Lead and support the recruiting process for engineers, including helping build an evaluation process that incorporates AI readiness and modern engineering practices
• Foster a culture of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and continuous improvement

Requirements:

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent years of experience
• Extensive experience designing and building scalable, performant systems across web, mobile, and backend services
• Deep expertise in cloud architecture, including application infrastructure, networking, observability, and deployment strategies
• Strong understanding of large-scale architectural patterns, including event-driven systems, microservices, distributed systems, and performance optimization
• Experience working in regulated healthcare environments, including familiarity with HIPAA compliance, PHI handling, and the technical constraints of EHR integrations or health plan data exchange
• Strong knowledge of application, network, and infrastructure security, including OWASP, DAST, SCA, SAST, and secure coding practices
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional technical initiatives and influence product direction
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts for senior leadership and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience designing or integrating AI or ML-powered product features such as prediction models, workflow automation, or retrieval-augmented systems
• Experience integrating AI into software development workflows, including AI-enhanced coding tools, automated testing, and CI/CD optimization
• Proven experience identifying and driving system-level and AI-driven improvements aligned to business objectives