Principal Software Engineer

**The salary range for this role is $6,000 - $12,500 per month (Gross in USD)**

**About Sezzle**:
With a mission to financially empower the next generation, Sezzle is revolutionizing the shopping experience beyond payments, blending cutting-edge tech with seamless, interest-free installment plans that make shopping smarter and more accessible. We're not just transforming payments; we're redefining how people discover, interact with, and purchase the things they love while driving real impact on merchant sales through increased conversions and higher order values. As we continue to shape the future of fintech and retail, we're building an innovative, dynamic team passionate about creating more than just a transaction but a truly unique shopping journey. If you're excited about pushing boundaries in tech and delivering a game-changing experience for consumers and merchants alike, come join us at Sezzle and help create the future of shopping

**Compensation**:
For this principal development role, with 12+ years of experience, the compensation range is** $6,000 - $12,500**per month. This range acknowledges the extensive expertise, leadership capabilities, and significant contributions expected at this level, offering a competitive salary to reflect the value of advanced skills and experience.

**About the Role**:
We are seeking a talented and motivated best-in-class Principal Software Engineer. This role presents an exciting opportunity to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment within a rapidly growing team, with abundant prospects for career advancement.

In this backend focused role, you will work closely with stakeholders from Product, Support and the business. You'll also partner with other engineering teams to provide high-quality, scalable, and innovative solutions to internal and customer problems. Your day-to-day responsibilities will include designing, developing, and delivering new features, as well as unblocking and mentoring your teammates. Your work will generally focus on the lower level features and optimizations.

This role has both an internal and external focus, your contributions will make a meaningful difference in the day-to-day lives of your peers at Sezzle, enhancing their ability to support our business and customers, and you will have opportunities to take any feedback and iterate.

**What You'll Do**:

- **Architect, design, and build** scalable backend services and APIs primarily in **Golang**, leveraging **AWS**, **RDS (MySQL/Postgres)**, and modern distributed patterns.
- Partner with teams across the organization to **integrate modern AI capabilities** - Primarily around tools like Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and enhancing team productivity.
- Drive consistency and scalability across a **distributed microservices architecture** while maintaining performance and reliability.
- Establish and evolve **engineering best practices** for observability, security, and CI/CD across teams.
- Mentor engineers and champion a culture of learning, innovation, and operational excellence.
- Collaborate cross-functionally to **translate business goals into technical roadmaps** and deliver results that matter.

**What We Look For**:

- **12+ years** of professional software engineering experience, including significant backend experience.
- Strong proficiency in **Golang**, with experience building and maintaining **RESTful APIs**.
- Expertise with **SQL-based RDBMS** (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and experience optimizing schema and queries for performance at scale.
- Solid understanding of **distributed systems design patterns** (e.g., transactional outbox, event-driven architecture, queues).
- Demonstrated ability to **bring new ideas forward**, influence decisions, and lead complex technical initiatives.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

**Preferred Knowledge and Skills**:

- Proficiency in **observability tools** (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic).
- Experience with **AWS cloud infrastructure**, mainly AWS Aurora RDS, both MySQL and Postgres.
- Experience in **fintech**, payments, BNPL, or consumer lending - familiarity with financial compliance, credit decisioning, or transaction processing systems.
- Experience with **CI/CD pipelines** and **containerized microservices** (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Working knowledge of **TypeScript**, **React**, or **React Native**.
- Familiarity with **AI/ML tooling** (e.g., OpenAI API, LangChain, Hugging Face, or custom LLM integrations).
- Proven leadership in guiding technical direction, improving system reliability, and scaling engineering organizations.

**About You**:

- **You have relentlessly high standards** - many people may think your standards are unreasonably high. You are continually raising the bar and driving those around you to deliver great results. You make sure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
- **You're not bound by convention** - your succ