Principal Engineer

About Stride Stride is an AI-Powered software engineering firm built to deliver real results. We combine elite engineering talent with cutting-edge GenAI tooling to help companies build high-quality software, modernize legacy systems, and future-proof their tech orgs. We are trusted technology partners with some of the biggest names revolutionizing the tech industry. From scaling startups to iconic Fortune 500 companies, we help our clients reach their goals by providing collaborative high-end technical consulting, agile transformation, and product delivery. What We Are Looking For We are seeking a Principal AI-Enabled Full-Stack Engineer to own technical direction, drive engineering excellence, and advise others on client engagements spanning backend systems, frontend applications, and cloud infrastructure. This is a hands-on, client-facing consulting role in which you will operate as a senior technical authority and trusted advisor, partnering with client executives, Product leadership, and Stride's own engineering leadership to shape architecture, delivery strategy, and technology direction across one or more engagements. While deep, hands-on software engineering expertise remains core to this role, we are especially interested in engineers who can define and champion how AI-enabled tooling, LLM integrations, and agentic frameworks are adopted across teams and engagements — not just within a single project. Why Stride As software development evolves, we increasingly help organizations incorporate AI-assisted development and agentic tooling into modern engineering workflows. Our teams combine strong software engineering fundamentals with emerging AI capabilities to deliver scalable, high-impact products. As Principal Engineer, you will help define that point of view for the firm and for our clients. Full-Stack Architecture & Technical Direction Set and own the technical architecture and direction for one or more client engagements, spanning backend, frontend, and cloud infrastructure. Guide the design of scalable backend services, APIs, and integrations that support high-performance, mission-critical applications. Provide architectural oversight for modern frontend experiences (React, NextJS, or similar), ensuring consistency and scalability across teams. Remain hands-on where it matters most — writing code, prototyping solutions, and unblocking teams on the hardest technical problems. Establish and enforce engineering standards across languages and ecosystems, ensuring consistency across multiple project teams. Lead architecture reviews, design sessions, and code reviews across teams, raising the technical bar firm-wide. AI-Enabled Engineering Strategy Define Stride's point of view and best practices for AI-assisted development, agentic frameworks, and LLM integration across engagements. Evaluate, pilot, and scale emerging AI tooling and agentic workflows, determining what should become standard practice across teams. Guide multiple teams in the adoption of AI-enabled capabilities (agent tools, automated documentation, AI-assisted coding), ensuring adoption is practical and value-driven rather than novelty-driven. Represent Stride's AI-enabled engineering capabilities in client and internal forums, mentoring Leads and Senior Engineers on where and how to apply these tools. Delivery Leadership & Agile Excellence Partner with Product and Engineering leadership across multiple engagements to shape roadmaps, backlogs, and delivery strategy. Coach team members on breaking down complex initiatives into well-scoped, estimable work. Own or heavily influence estimation, staffing, and risk assessment for engagement-level planning. Champion retrospectives and continuous improvement practices across teams, raising delivery maturity firm-wide. Model and reinforce a culture of transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement at the organizational level. Stride Leadership & Mentorship Serve as the top technical authority on one or more delivery teams or accounts, owning architecture and major implementation decisions. Mentor and develop Lead and Senior Engineers, growing their technical judgment and leadership capabilities. Drive technical due diligence, feasibility assessments, and solution architecture during early-stage and pre-sales engagements. Identify and mitigate technical risk across engagements, escalating and resolving issues before they impact delivery. Contribute to hiring, technical interviewing, and the development of Stride's engineering career ladder. Client & Executive Stakeholder Engagement Act as a trusted technical advisor to client executives (CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Product leadership), shaping their technology and AI strategy. Lead technical discovery, solutioning, and pre-sales conversations, positioning Stride's engineering and AI capabilities. Present architecture, roadmaps, and recommendations directly to client leadership, clearly articulating tradeoffs, risks, and business impact. Build long-term trusted relationships that extend Stride's footprint within client organizations. Engineering Excellence & Firm-Wide Impact Define and evangelize engineering standards around quality, testing, security, performance, and AI-enabled development across Stride. Build reusable frameworks, accelerators, and shared components that raise productivity across multiple engagements. Represent Stride's engineering practice through thought leadership — internal guilds, conference talks, blog posts, or client-facing points of view. Stay ahead of emerging full-stack, cloud-native, and AI/agentic trends, and translate them into practical guidance for the firm. Qualifications – Must Haves 10+ years of professional experience as a Full-Stack, Backend, or Software Engineer, including significant time in senior/lead or architect-level roles. Demonstrated experience owning technical architecture and direction across multiple teams, products, or engagements. Deep expertise building backend services and APIs using languages such as Java, Python, Ruby, Go, or similar technologies, at scale. Deep expertise developing modern frontend applications using React and/or NextJS, with a strong eye for architecture and reusability. Extensive experience with relational and NoSQL databases, distributed systems, and scalable, resilient architectures. Proven track record leading Test Driven Development (TDD), Pair Programming, and engineering best practices across teams. Strong experience operating in and shaping Agile delivery environments (Scrum, Kanban) at the account or program level. Exceptional communication and executive presence, with a track record of advising client leadership (CTO/VP-level) directly. Hands-on experience designing and implementing solutions using agentic AI frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar. Demonstrated ability to evaluate, pilot, and drive adoption of AI-assisted development tools and modern developer workflows across teams. Experience integrating AI capabilities or LLM APIs into production software applications. Experience mentoring and developing senior and lead-level engineers. Qualifications – Nice to Haves Experience architecting production systems that leverage LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Azure OpenAI, etc.) at scale. Experience working with Model Context Protocol (MCP) or building tool-integrated AI systems. Experience designing systems using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) or vector databases. Experience architecting event-driven or microservices systems. Consulting or professional services background, including pre-sales or solutioning experience. Public thought leadership — conference talks, published articles, open-source contributions, or patents. Experience building or shaping an engineering practice, career ladder, or Center of Excellence. What Success Looks Like You set the technical direction for one or more engagements, and teams execute against it with confidence. You are the person clients and Stride leadership turn to when evaluating where LLM integrations, agentic tooling, or other emerging technology can create real value. You've grown one or more Lead or Senior Engineers into stronger technical leaders under your mentorship. Clients view you as a strategic technical partner and advisor — someone shaping their roadmap and technology strategy, not just delivering against it. You've helped define how Stride approaches AI-enabled engineering, and that point of view shows up in how multiple teams work. You balance deep technical rigor with pragmatism, ensuring speed, quality, and maintainability across complex, high-stakes delivery environments.