Principal Software Engineer

Office NC
8051 Arco Corporate Dr
Raleigh, NC 27617, USA

This is a hybrid position that requires a minimum of 3 days per week in our Raleigh NC office.

AKC is seeking a hands‑on Principal Software Engineer to lead a small team supporting the applications used by our Sports & Events business. This is a player‑coach role for someone who can manage people, write code, design practical solutions, estimate work, and lead projects through delivery.

You will partner closely with business analysts, Sports & Events stakeholders, QA, UX, PMO, and peer engineering leaders to support production systems, deliver enhancements, and improve the long‑term health of the application portfolio. Success in this role requires strong technical judgment, clear communication, and the ability to balance delivery with ongoing L2 support in a small‑team environment.

• This is a hybrid position requiring onsite work in our Raleigh, NC office.
• Core technical experience with Oracle SQL, Angular, and Node.js is required.

• Lead a small, high‑impact team where your technical contribution and leadership both matter
• Own a meaningful portfolio of applications that support AKC’s Sports & Events operations
• Help shape improvements across modern and legacy systems while working closely with business and engineering partners

• Lead and develop the team: Manage, coach, and support a small team of developers and contractors while fostering accountability, collaboration, and technical growth.
• Own technical delivery: Lead the design, estimation, planning, and execution of small to mid‑sized projects and enhancements, translating business requirements into practical solutions.
• Contribute hands‑on: Write code, perform code reviews, troubleshoot issues, and help the team deliver high‑quality solutions.
• Partner across the business: Work closely with Sports & Events stakeholders, business analysts, QA, UX, PMO, and peer engineering leaders to align priorities and deliver effectively.
• Support and improve production systems: Oversee ongoing support and maintenance of production applications, including L2 issue resolution, root cause analysis, prioritization of fixes, and opportunities to modernize or rewrite legacy systems over time.
• Drive engineering quality: Promote strong engineering practices in code quality, testing, documentation, estimation, and maintainable design.

Leadership and Delivery

• 10+ years of software development experience, including leading projects and managing or mentoring technical team members
• Strong ability to estimate work, break down requirements, identify risks and dependencies, and guide a team through execution
• Experience with interviewing, hiring, coaching, performance feedback, and employee development
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with business and technical partners

• Strong understanding of software design, application architecture, and best practices for building scalable, maintainable systems
• Experience translating business processes into structured technical workflows and designing solutions for branching logic, exception handling, and coordinated system behavior
• Understanding of APIs, event‑driven architectures, messaging systems, asynchronous processing, and orchestration patterns
• Experience evaluating workflow or orchestration platforms and supporting transformation initiatives is a plus

• Comfort working across modern and legacy application stacks, with the ability to learn unfamiliar technologies to troubleshoot and support existing systems
• Experience in a Dev Ops‑oriented environment with shared ownership for delivery, deployment, and production support
• Python, MongoDB, Redis, Linux, Docker, FastAPI, NestJS, Elasticsearch, NGINX, Grafana, and InfluxDB are helpful

• Engineers who enjoy
  leading from the front
  , not from the sidelines
• People comfortable working in a
  small, high‑impact team
• Leaders who can
  balance delivery, support, and people management
  effectively

This role is likely not a fit if:

• You are looking for a role focused primarily on people management rather than hands‑on technical contribution
• You prefer clear separation between leadership responsibilities and day‑to‑day technical delivery
• You are looking for a pure greenfield or architecture‑only role with minimal support responsibility
• You strongly prefer working only with modern technologies and are not interested in supporting or modernizing legacy systems

Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.