Principal Software Engineer Consumer Discovery

Company Description

As the world’s pioneering local delivery platform, our mission is to deliver an amazing experience, fast, easy, and to your door. We operate in around 65 countries worldwide powered by tech, designed by people. As one of Europe’s largest tech platforms, headquartered in Berlin, Germany. the company has been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 2017 and is part of the MDAX stock market index.

We enable creative minds to deliver solutions that create impact within our ecosystem. We move fast, take action and adapt. No matter where you’re from or what you believe in, we build, we deliver, we lead. We are the company.

the company is the world’s leading local delivery platform, operating in over 70 countries and driving approximately $50 Billion USD in annual GMV. As more than 90% of this revenue is converted through Discovery-related services, your technical leadership will directly fuel our global business.

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to serve as the technical North Star for our high-load, Tier‑1 Search and Recommendation systems. In this role, you will move beyond maintenance to architecting a new engineering culture centered on Agentic Engineering. You won’t just design the next‑generation of discovery systems; you will design the autonomous tooling and AI‑driven workflows that accelerate our global velocity.

As a key technical leader within Global Discovery, you will provide the architectural backbone for our global Search and Recommendation services powering iconic brands like Glovo, Foodpanda, Talabat, Pedidosya and others. Your focus is on individual technical excellence and acting as a force multiplier for our engineering teams.

• Agentic Engineering Transformation: Guide teams through the shift to an agentic mode of execution, implementing AI‑driven development and autonomous operational workflows.
• Self‑Healing Systems: Design and implement resilient, Tier‑1 services capable of handling massive global traffic with zero‑compromise reliability through autonomous, self‑healing architectures.
• Zero‑to‑One Innovation: Lead the technical build of production‑grade conversational search interfaces from the ground up, moving from keyword‑matching to intent‑driven, LLM‑powered dialogue.
• Force Multiplier & Upskilling: You will be a fixture in pair and mob programming sessions. Your job is to level up the engineering organization by demonstrating elite coding practices, architectural thinking, and the effective use of AI‑tooling in real‑time.
• Strategic Influence: You will translate complex business needs into scalable software. You are expected to challenge product requirements and pitch your own technical initiatives that can move the needle on GMV.
• Product Shaping: Collaborate with product stakeholders to challenge and shape requirements, ensuring they translate into extensible and scalable solutions.

• Tier‑1 Stewardship: A proven history of owning the architectural integrity of global‑scale systems where “down‑time” is not an option.
• Simplicity at Scale:
  The ability to decompose massive, high‑concurrency challenges into elegant, extensible distributed systems.
• Future‑Proofing: A talent for designing “pluggable” architectures that allow for rapid experimentation without technical debt accumulation.

• Bias for Action:
  You favor shipping and “figuring it out” over endless planning, moving at an “uncomfortable pace” to deliver value.
• Problem‑First Mindset:
  You focus on the core business need rather than just ticking off tasks, transforming user friction into robust technical solutions.
• Craftsmanship without Compromise:
  You maintain a relentless commitment to the quality of the craft and reject “quiet compromises” in code or infrastructure.

• Force Multiplier:
  You thrive in pair and mob programming, naturally leveling up the engineers around you through “lead‑by‑example” agentic coding.
• Product Shaping:
  You don’t just take orders; you challenge requirements and pitch technical initiatives that directly move the needle on GMV.
• Change Agent:
  Yo…