Principal Engineer

WHAT’S A PRINCIPAL ENGINEER AT HOOK?

You’re happiest when someone on the creative team says "I don’t know how we did this before." You build the tools that make that possible. As one of Hook’s principal pipeline engineers, you own the internal systems and tools that make our creative and production teams faster, smarter, and more capable, everything from web applications and workflow automation to plugins for the Adobe Creative Suite (UXP/CEP/Extendscript) and Figma.

You hold yourself to a high bar across the entire development lifecycle: problem discovery, architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and the long‑term health of what you ship. You care about the craft of software as much as the outcome.

• Design, build, and maintain internal pipeline tools and systems that help Hook’s creative, production, and operations teams work more efficiently, including web applications, workflow automation, and API integrations
• Work closely and empathetically with Motion Designers, Art Directors, and Producers to deeply understand their workflows, gather requirements, and translate their creative challenges into technical solutions
• Develop plugins and extensions for Adobe Creative Suite applications (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator) and Figma, primarily in Type Script
• Own product areas end‑to‑end: problem discovery, UX consideration, technical design, implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing improvement
• Identify workflow bottlenecks across departments and propose and execute technical solutions
• Recommend and evaluate new tools, frameworks, and approaches, especially in areas where Hook has evolving or emerging needs
• Serve as technical lead on select client projects (typically websites or small web applications), and occasionally manage freelance developers contributing to those engagements
• Codify your knowledge through documentation, best practices, and internal guides that help the broader team level up
• Participate in technical strategy as a craft leader, pushing Hook’s capabilities forward

• Deep expertise in Type Script and the Node.js ecosystem, this is your primary language and environment
• A demonstrated love of the whole development cycle: from proposal and planning through implementation, testing, optimization, and deployment
• Proven experience building and shipping production‑grade applications end‑to‑end, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability throughout
• Experience developing plugins, extensions, or integrations for creative software—Adobe apps (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator), Figma, or similar tools
• Proficiency with Python, bash, and associated scripting and automation tools
• Experience developing, deploying and operating applications on Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Vercel, or equivalent cloud environments. Use of Docker containers for development is a plus, deploying them to production even more so
• Working knowledge of relational databases or document‑based databases
• Must have deep proficiency in the React ecosystem, including component architecture, state management, hooks, and optimization, to build robust, highly interactive, multi‑user web applications
• Comfortable with both frontend and backend engineering disciplines when developing applications
• A strong foundation in software engineering principles — you write secure, reliable, maintainable code and hold yourself to a high standard of craft
• The ability to work independently and make confident, well‑reasoned architectural decisions without a lot of hand‑holding
• Strong communication and collaboration skills — you must be adept at translating complex technical information, such as system architecture and design, to a developer, while also clearly and concisely explaining the same concepts to non‑technical stakeholders, including creatives or producers. Furthermore, you should approach problem‑solving with a collaborative, "customer mindset" when working with the internal team, ensuring that you are responsive to their needs and focused on achieving shared goals
• An informed curiosity about AI and what it makes newly possible — not just as a coding aid, but as a creative and technical force…