Principal Software Engineer

Before You Apply — Know What This Role Is

This is a Principal-level individual contributor role. You will spend the majority of your time writing, reviewing, and shipping code across a modern full-stack environment. There are real opportunities to lead cross-functional technical initiatives and grow into broader engineering leadership — but the weight of this role is firmly on technical excellence and personal output. If you thrive in an environment that rewards craft and delivery over delegation, this role is built for you.

ABOUT WAY.COM

Way.com is America's dominant automotive super app, powering every mile for over 10 million customers — from auto insurance and parking to EV charging and more. Leveraging cutting-edge AI, machine learning, and advanced data analytics, we deliver innovative, personalized solutions that transform car ownership. Featured by Bloomberg, ranked 48th on the Andreessen Horowitz Marketplace 100, and recognized as the top Product in Insurance by UnitQ.

THE ROLE IN PLAIN TERMS

You will be a principal-level technical owner who ships across the full stack — back end services, front end interfaces, and everything in between. Roughly 70% of your time is hands-on engineering: writing, reviewing, and delivering production-grade code in Java, Kotlin, Type Script, JavaScript (Node.js, Angular, React), SQL, and related technologies. The remaining 30% is technical leadership — driving architecture decisions, mentoring engineers, and collaborating cross-functionally. Over time, this role offers a natural path toward broader engineering leadership for the right person. You will use AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, etc.) as your primary productivity accelerant — we expect at least 70% of your code output to be generated or substantially augmented by AI tooling. You will own the on-call rotation for critical production incidents on a rotating basis.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Engineering & Technical Delivery (70%)

• Write and ship production-quality code across the full stack — back end (Java, Kotlin, Node.js), front end (Angular, React, Type Script), and data layers (SQL and beyond); hands-on coding is a daily expectation, not an occasional gesture.
• Design and implement event-driven, distributed systems built for high throughput, low latency, and 10x transaction growth.
• Use AI-assisted tools (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, etc.) to generate, test, and debug code — a minimum of 70% of code output should leverage AI tooling; candidates who resist or under utilize AI will not be a fit.
• Conduct rigorous design and code reviews, setting a high quality bar across the code base.
• Identify and address performance bottlenecks, technical debt, and architectural gaps across the platform.
• Resolve complex, high-severity technical issues — including during off-hours and weekends — as part of a rotating on-call schedule (approximately 1 in every 4 weekends).
• Own platform reliability personally; you are accountable for 99.9% uptime.

Technical Leadership & Growth Opportunities (30%)

• Lead cross-functional engineering initiatives from technical scoping through delivery, coordinating across product, design, and operations.
• Mentor and support fellow engineers, helping raise the technical bar and AI-first development fluency across the team.
• Collaborate with Product, Marketing, and Operations to define and hit business-critical milestones.
• Contribute to architecture and technical roadmap decisions; bring opinionated, well-reasoned recommendations to engineering leadership.
• Ensure platforms meet the scale and compliance requirements of enterprise partners including Amazon, Travelers, Chubb, and Hagerty.
• For the right person, this role offers a clear path to broader engineering management responsibility over time.

ON-CALL & INCIDENT OWNERSHIP

Critical Incident Response is a Core Part of This Job

Production incidents don't follow a 9-to-5 schedule. You will be on-call on a rotating basis (approx. 1 in 4 weekends) and are expected to personally lead triage and resolution of P0/P1 incidents whenever they arise — including nights, weekends, and holidays. This is not optional and is a condition of employment. Candidates who are uncomfortable with this should not apply.

• Own the engineering on-call rotation; personally respond to and lead resolution of all critical production incidents.
• Establish and continuously improve incident management playbooks, runbooks, and post-mortem processes.
• Ensure strong observability, alerting, and monitoring infrastructure so incidents are detected and resolved fast.
• Maintain clear escalation paths and communication protocols for major outages affecting partners or customers.

REQUIREMENTS

• 10 years of engineering experience, with a consistent record of hands-on technical delivery at a senior or principal level.
• Strong full-stack proficiency across Java, Kotlin, Node.js, TypeScript, JavaScript (Angular and/or React), and SQL; comfort moving between backend and frontend is essential.
• Solid grounding in distributed systems, event-driven architecture, and high-throughput platform design.
• Demonstrated, day-to-day fluency with AI-assisted coding tools (Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent); must be able to demonstrate AI-augmented productivity in your portfolio or during the interview process.
• Experience running self-hosted infrastructure (bare metal, colocation, or private data centers) — not reliant on AWS/GCP/Azure.
• Genuine comfort with high-pressure, off-hours availability for critical incident response — this is a required, recurring part of the role.
• Experience at a fast-scaling consumer tech company; unicorn startup background strongly preferred.
• Strong communicator who can work effectively with product, design, and business stakeholders — not just engineers.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

WHAT WON'T WORK HERE

• Backend-only specialists: This role spans frontend and backend; comfort across the stack is required.
• Pure managers: If you haven't written meaningful production code in the last 6 months, this is not the right fit.
• AI skeptics: If you view AI coding tools as a novelty rather than a core productivity multiplier, this is not the right fit.
• Strictly 9-to-5 candidates: Rotating on-call and off-hours incident ownership are non-negotiable conditions of this role.
• Public-cloud-only engineers: Our infrastructure is self-hosted; experience with bare metal or colocation is required.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

KPI - Target

1. Platform uptime - 99.9% or higher, with strong monitoring and incident response.

2. AI-assisted code output - ≥70% of personal code generated or substantially augmented by AI tools.

3. On-time delivery - Major product and platform milestones hit on schedule.

4. Engineering velocity - Measurable improvement in team throughput via AI-first development adoption.

5. Cost efficiency - Reduced dev cycles and infrastructure spend quarter-over-quarter.

6. Team health - Strong retention, clear leadership pipeline, high team velocity.

7. Enterprise readiness - Uptime, scale, and compliance standards met for top B2B partners.

8. Incident resolution - P0/P1 incidents resolved within SLA; post-mortems completed within 48 hours.

WHY JOIN WAY.COM

• Work across a modern full-stack environment — Java, Kotlin, Node.js, React, Angular, TypeScript — at meaningful scale.
• Build and shape distributed, event-driven systems that power over 10 million customers.
• Be at the forefront of AI-first engineering — this company doesn't just allow AI tooling, it demands it.
• Deliver platforms trusted by Amazon, Travelers, Chubb, and Hagerty.
• Grow into technical leadership at the #1 Car Services Platform in the U.S. on your own timeline.
• High-intensity, high-reward environment where personal output is recognized and compensated accordingly.
• Competitive compensation and performance-based incentives.
• Salary Range is $175,000 - $250,000 Annually