Principal Full Stack Engineer | $90-$120/hr + Remote | Inc. 5000 Award-Winning, High-Growth Coaching Company

We are looking for a hands on Principal Full Stack Engineer who can lead a small development team while owning complex product and architectural work. This is a player-coach role: you will write and review production code, make pragmatic architecture decisions, guide engineers and contractors, and drive delivery in close partnership with Product and the existing platform architect.

A defining requirement is proven experience building the proprietary AI capabilities of an AI SaaS product from

the ground up. We need someone who has engineered the AI application layer and its production systems, not

someone whose AI experience is limited to connecting a chatbot or third-party AI API to an existing application. Using foundation models or third-party model APIs is compatible with this requirement; the differentiator is ownership of the underlying AI product architecture and functionality.

• Lead a small engineering team: set technical direction within agreed product priorities, mentor developers, delegate work, run effective code/design reviews, coordinate contractors, remove blockers, and maintain accountability for quality and delivery. • Build proprietary AI product capabilities: design and implement retrieval and RAG pipelines, embeddings/vector search, persistent memory and member context, stateful workflows, tool use, orchestration, guardrails, and AI-driven personalization. • Assess the existing production codebase for security vulnerabilities, scalability and performance bottlenecks, architecture risks, data protection concerns, and reliability issues, then prioritize and implement pragmatic improvements required for a safe, stable public launch. • Take increasing ownership of the overall technical health and architecture of the platform, ultimately becoming the internal technical owner responsible for its stability, security, scalability, reliability, and continued evolution. • Own features end to end, from data modeling and architecture through implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and production support. • Work across the full stack with a strong backend focus, while remaining hands on with Vue.js frontend development and contributing to a polished customer experience. • Serve as the internal technical counterpart to outside engineering partners, reviewing architecture and code, challenging technical decisions when appropriate, validating deliverables, and ensuring work meets product, security, scalability, and production requirements. • Partner with the existing platform engineer on technical knowledge transfer, including architecture, codebase knowledge, environments, infrastructure, accounts, deployment processes, documentation, and operational procedures. • Design, automate, and execute rigorous functional, regression, load, and smoke testing. • Design and evolve relational data models, PostgreSQL schemas, queries, indexes, migrations, and Prisma models, with a strong understanding of relational database design and performance. • Work across integrations such as Stripe Connect, LiveKit, Twilio, Zoom, Anthropic, and pgvector. • Use AI coding agents to accelerate development while maintaining high standards for correctness, reliability, security, and maintainability. • 8 to 12+ years of software engineering experience, including strong production experience with Vue.js and deep hands on experience with relational database design. PostgreSQL experience is preferred, and experience with Nuxt and Prisma is a plus. • Strong experience owning significant portions of a production platform across backend architecture, databases, APIs and integrations, infrastructure, deployment, monitoring, troubleshooting, and production support. • Proven experience developing an AI native SaaS product or substantial proprietary AI product capability, from initial architecture through production launch and ongoing operation. • Proven experience assessing production applications for security, scalability, reliability, and performance risks, with hands on experience identifying vulnerabilities, protecting sensitive customer data, diagnosing bottlenecks, and implementing pragmatic improvements. • Demonstrated technical leadership of small development teams, including hands on mentorship, architecture reviews, work planning, coordination, and shipping results while personally contributing code. • Experience reviewing and validating other engineers' or external development partners' work, including architecture decisions, code quality, testing, security, scalability, and production readiness. • Ability to quickly understand and contribute within an existing codebase and technical direction, identifying material risks and making pragmatic improvements rather than defaulting to unnecessary rewrites or redesigns. • Experience owning production readiness, including monitoring, incident troubleshooting, release processes, technical QA, and resolving critical production issues. • Proven experience using AI coding agents on a production codebase to improve productivity, not replace thinking. • Extremely organized and self sufficient, with the ability to operate independently and make sound technical decisions in a fast paced environment. • Excited to work in a startup environment, with a track record of adapting to changing priorities and taking increasing technical ownership as the company scales.