Principal Software Developer

The Role

We’re seeking a Principal Software Developer to report to the Director, Software Engineering and collaborate closely with software developers, data scientists, geoscientists, applied scientists, and Dev Ops. This is a hands‑on individual contributor role.

Ideon’s software engineering team has grown significantly, with strong senior developers building complex systems across cloud platforms, scientific compute, data pipelines, and customer‑facing products. As we enter our next growth phase, we’re expanding into new domains such as AI‑enabled workflows, intelligent automation, and large‑scale compute platforms.

This role will help guide critical technical decisions as we scale 2x–5x, challenging assumptions, shaping architecture, and supporting teams to make better decisions earlier. You’ll also contribute to AI‑first practices, engineering standards, and scalable platform design—using deep technical expertise, strong judgment, and influence through execution.

You will impact and drive Ideon’s objectives forward by focusing on the following activities:

• Act as a senior technical contributor, partnering with teams to solve complex problems and guide critical decisions.
• Spend hands‑on time in the codebase, focusing on high‑risk, high‑impact areas and building prototypes or proofs‑of‑concept to de‑risk architecture.
• Support software developers through design, optimization, and debugging, helping teams make strong decisions early and move faster with less rework.
• Lead architectural design and platform evolution across APIs, distributed systems, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure, ensuring alignment with business priorities.
• Establish reusable patterns and reference architectures to scale development and reduce duplication across teams.
• Drive pragmatic build vs. buy decisions and document key architectural tradeoffs to strengthen institutional knowledge.
• Own and evolve architecture for large‑scale compute systems, including distributed workloads, scheduling, and optimization across CPU, memory, and GPU.
• Evaluate and guide adoption of HPC and distributed technologies (e.g., Ray, Dask, Kubernetes, Azure HPC) to support scalable compute platforms.
• Apply an AI‑first mindset, identifying how AI and automation can shape architecture, improve engineering productivity, and unlock new product capabilities.

• Contribute to Ideon’s broader software engineering strategy: participating in planning cycles, roadmap reviews, and strategic discussions with leadership.

• Faster, higher‑quality technical decisions, with clear tradeoffs and reduced rework.
• Scalable, well‑architected systems and platforms that support growth and increase team velocity.
• Reliable, efficient compute systems and thoughtful integration of AI‑first practices, with strong technical leadership demonstrated through hands‑on impact.

• Build a deep understanding of Ideon’s systems and architectural challenges while establishing credibility through hands‑on contribution.
• Partner with senior engineers to identify high‑impact areas and contribute to key technical initiatives and decisions.
• Identify opportunities to improve system design, developer experience, and platform consistency.

• Education:
  
  Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent combination of training and experience.
• 12+ years of professional software development experience, including 3+ years operating in senior technical leadership roles as a Staff, Principal, Lead, or Architect‑level individual contributor.
• Strong backend expertise (e.g., Python, Go, Java, C#) and hands‑on experience building cloud‑native systems in Azure or similar environments.
• Deep experience with distributed systems, APIs, and platform engineering practices.
• Background in HPC or large‑scale compute workloads, including CPU‑, memory‑, and GPU‑intensive systems.
• Proven ability to influence teams through technical depth, execution,…