Principal Software Engineer Equity at Highnote

Job Details

Job Title: Principal Software Engineer

Salary: $190,000-$240,000 + Equity

Company

Description:

Highnote - VC-backed fintech SaaS platform

Location: San Francisco, USA

Job Description:
As a Principal Software Engineer at Highnote, you will architect and build secure, compliant embedded finance products using Java. You will lead technical design for our high-scale card issuing and ledger platform, leveraging AI-powered development tools to drive productivity. This is a critical role for scaling our infrastructure and solving complex payment use cases.

• Join a powerhouse team founded by Braintree and Pay Pal veterans, backed by $145M+ in funding from top-tier investors like Oak HC/FT and Costanoa Ventures.

• Influence the architecture of a modern card-issuing platform that is setting new industry standards for flexibility, scalability, and developer experience.

• High-impact, hybrid role in San Francisco with a flat hierarchy, offering direct exposure to leadership and the chance to build from the ground up.

• Design and implement mission-critical platform products and financial ledgers using Java 11+, Spring Boot, and robust SQL.

• Integrate and champion AI-powered development tools across the entire software lifecycle to accelerate prototyping and iteration.

• Collaborate across domains to document and strengthen platform architecture while ensuring top-tier security and compliance.

• 12+ years of experience building high-scale production systems with a focus on scalable, performant, and maintainable Java code.

• Deep proficiency in modern engineering ecosystems, including AI agent frameworks, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), and container orchestration like Kubernetes.

• Passionate about customer-centric engineering and thrive in fast-paced startup environments where you solve problems that don’t have existing blueprints.