Principal Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Engineer based in Italy. As a Principal Engineer stepping into an Architect-level role, you will shape the future architecture of a large-scale Merchant Experience platform. You will own the technical direction of the pillar and influence engineering strategy across multiple teams. The role combines deep hands-on technical expertise with architectural leadership, mentoring, and cross-team collaboration. You will tackle complex challenges involving scalability, performance, distributed systems, integrations, and domain modeling. You will work closely with fellow architects and engineering leaders to establish consistent standards, practices, and technical guardrails. You will also champion Domain-Driven Design and help teams turn architectural vision into robust, scalable solutions. This is an opportunity to have broad technical influence in a global, collaborative, and cloud-native engineering environment. Own and share accountability for the technical direction, architecture, and solution design within the Merchant Experience pillar. Make and guide key architectural decisions, reviewing technical and design documentation to ensure alignment with broader platform strategy and engineering standards. Contribute to organization-wide engineering strategy and standards through participation in architecture-focused initiatives and councils. Support engineering teams during implementation by creating proofs of concept, clarifying architectural decisions, and resolving complex design challenges. Investigate and address architecture-related challenges across performance, scalability, integrations, distributed systems, and other critical areas. Mentor engineers and technical leaders on architecture, design techniques, coding standards, and engineering best practices, extending technical influence across multiple teams. Collaborate with architects and engineering teams to establish cohesive architecture practices, guardrails, and standards, and drive their adoption. Act as a subject-matter authority for Domain-Driven Design and architectural best practices, educating and mentoring teams to promote consistent, high-quality solutions. Requirements: 10+ years of proven software engineering experience, including experience as a Staff or Principal Engineer, Lead Developer, Software Architect, or in a comparable senior technical leadership role. Expert theoretical and practical knowledge of Domain-Driven Design (DDD), particularly its application to microservices architectures and complex domain modeling. Strong understanding of software engineering fundamentals, including data structures, software architecture, design patterns, and distributed systems. Demonstrated ability to solve complex technical problems and translate architectural concepts into practical solutions. Excellent written and spoken English, with strong communication skills and the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across teams. Professional experience with AWS or another major cloud platform such as Google Cloud or Azure. Strong technical leadership, mentoring, stakeholder management, and cross-functional collaboration skills. Nice to have: expert-level PHP experience, familiarity with PostgreSQL and MySQL, and an understanding of modern front-end technologies. Experience with technologies and practices such as Symfony, Doctrine, Yii, TypeScript, Node.js, Angular, Vue.js, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and cloud-native architectures is advantageous. Familiarity with AI-assisted software development, including the practical use of LLMs and coding assistants for implementation, testing, debugging, documentation, and code quality, is a plus. Benefits: Fully remote work within eligible EMEA locations, including Romania, with flexibility to work from a moder