Principal Software Engineer

Are you passionate about innovating at the intersection of technology and personal security? At Pindrop, we recognize that the human voice is a unique personal identifier, increasingly susceptible to sophisticated fraud, including the threat of deepfakes. We're leading the way in developing cutting-edge authentication, fraud prevention, and deepfake detection. Our mission is to provide seamless and secure digital experiences, safeguarding the most personal aspect of our identity: our voice. Here, you'll be part of a team driven by values of Innovation, Customer Advocacy, Excellence, and Impact. We're not just creating a safer digital landscape by fortifying trust and integrity with those we serve. We’re also building a dynamic, supportive workplace where your contributions make a real difference.

Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Pindrop is backed by world-class investors such as Andreessen-Horowitz, IVP, and CapitalG.

• Architect, build, and scale application-layer services that support fraud detection, secure identity, and customer trust workflows
• Lead modernization efforts, including migration from monolith to microservices and high-throughput event-driven architectures
• Drive design of authentication, authorization, and MFA systems (SSO, OAuth2, SAML, OpenID), enabling secure user access at scale
• Introduce technical patterns and coding frameworks to improve consistency, maintainability, and developer velocity across teams
• Partner with platform teams to increase service uptime, fault tolerance, and system observability
• Serve as a technical advisor on developer productivity tools, testing frameworks, and infrastructure resilience (e.g., Kubernetes test automation, multi-database replication strategies)
• Mentor engineers across teams, lead design reviews, and guide high-stakes architectural decisions
• Participate in the incident response and on-call rotation to reinforce a culture of operational excellence
• Designing network topologies and architectures to meet the organization’s requirements for scalability, performance, and security
• Designing and implementing redundancy and failover mechanisms to ensure high availability in the cloud
• Configure and troubleshoot Application and Network Load balancers
• Use scripting tools like Python, Ansible, and Bash to automate daily tasks
  

• A seasoned Principal Engineer or equivalent with 15+ years of experience across application server design, fraud prevention, and authentication systems
• A rare systems thinker who’s equally comfortable contributing code, refactoring monoliths, or designing fault-tolerant architectures
• An advocate for open standards with direct experience contributing to core frameworks and developing application infrastructure from the ground up.
• Adept at guiding teams through architecture transitions while maintaining uptime, security, and performanceEqually motivated by teaching others as you are by solving complex technical problemsPassionate about building trust and safety into systems from the ground up

• Built and scaled application servers, load balancers, and high-performance middleware with expertise in Java, Spring Boot, Kafka, ElasticSearch, and Kubernetes
• Deep knowledge of IAM, including OAuth2, OpenID, SSO, and MFA integrations (e.g., Twilio, SendGrid)
• Experience decoupling large-scale monoliths and implementing resilient microservices architectures using queues, caching, and fault-tolerant patterns (e.g., Redis fallback, Kubernetes HA)
• Hands-on experience with monitoring, test automation, and CI/CD systems like Prometheus, ELK, and Kubernetes-based pipelines
• Background in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation), and container orchestration (EKS, GKE)
• Contributor to industry specifications and advocate for open-source tools that enhance software engineering quality
• Demonstrated ability to lead hybrid teams, mentor junior engineers, and drive adoption of architectural best practices
• Understanding of cloud services offered by the chosen platform, including computing, storage, databases, networking, and security
• Experience in Docker, container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes, GKE, or AWS ECS/EKS
• Proficiency in monitoring tools like Prometheus, AWS CloudWatch or Azure Monitor
• Experience with log management systems like ELK Stack, CloudWatch Logs, and GCP Logging
• Experience with Chef/Ansible, Bash, and Python scripting
• Knowledge of some or all of our toolset: GitHub Actions, Grafana, Jenkins, JFrog
• Working experience in Istio is a plus

As a Pindropper, you join a rapidly growing company that is making technology more human with the power of voice. You will work alongside some of the best and brightest. We’re a passionate group committed to excellence - but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying the journey as a team with chess and poker tournaments, catered lunches and happy hours, wellness programming, and more. Because we take our jobs seriously, we add time for rest with Unlimited PTO, Focus Thursday, and Company-wide Rest Days. 

Within 30 days, you’ll

• Be introduced to your team colleagues and added to any standing meetings such as 1:1’s, standups, and weekly touchpoints.
• Be onboarded, have accounts created, and access verified.
• Begin getting familiar with our different products, services, workflows, deployments, and environments.
• Participate in On-call rotation in shadow mode.

Within 60 days, you’ll

• Participate in on-call rotation and be able to handle 80% of alert and incident first-level responses.
• Understand expectations for the team and be able to start planning for development and contributing to projects.
• Begin documenting our core infrastructure in Lucid Charts.
• Part of the infrastructure project initiative.

Within 90 days, you’ll

• Provide analysis of core routing between networks with suggested changes.
• Lead one of the project initiatives as the primary.
• Identify additional areas of improvement in our network stack.

As a part of Pindrop, you’ll have a direct impact on our growing list of products and the future of security in the voice-driven economy. We hire great people and take care of them. Here’s a snapshot of the benefits we offer:

• Competitive compensation, including equity for all employees
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO)
• 4 company-wide rest days in 2025, where the entire company rests and recharges!
• Generous health and welfare plans to choose from - including one employer-paid “employee-only” plan!
• Best-in-class Health Savings Account (HSA) employer contribution
• Affordable vision and dental plans for you and your family
• Employer-provided life and disability coverage with additional supplemental options
• Paid Parental Leave - Equal for all parents, including birth, adoptive & foster parents
• Give your newest addition to the family one year of diaper delivery! It’s our way of welcoming new Pindroplets to the family!
• Identity protection through Norton LifeLock
• Remote-first culture with opportunities for in-person team events
• Recurring monthly home office allowance
• When we need a break, we keep it fun with happy hours, ping pong and foosball, drinks and snacks, and monthly massages!
• Remote and in-person team activities (think cheese tastings, chess tournaments, talent shows, murder mysteries, and more!)
• Company holidays
• Annual professional development and learning benefit
• Pick your own Apple MacBook Pro
• Retirement plan with competitive 401(k) match
• Wellness Program including Employee Assistance Program, 24/7 Telemedicine
  

At Pindrop, our Core Values are fundamental beliefs at the center of all we do. They are our guiding principles that dictate our actions and behaviors. Our Values are deeply embedded into our culture in big and small ways and even help us decide right from wrong when the path forward is unclear. At Pindrop, we believe in taking accountability to make decisions and act in a way that reflects who we are. We truly believe making decisions and acting with our Core Values in mind will help us to achieve our goals and keep Pindrop a great place to work:    

• Audaciously Innovate - We continue to change the world and the way people safely engage and interact with technology. As first-principle thinkers, we challenge standards, take risks, and learn from our mistakes in order to make positive change and continuous improvement. We believe nothing is impossible.
  
• Evangelical Customers for Life - We delight, inspire, and empower customers from day one and for life. We create a partnership and experience that results in a shared passion.   We are champions for our customers, and our customers become our champions, creating a universal commitment to one another. 
  
• Execution Excellence - We do what we say and say what we do. We are accountable for making the tough decisions and necessary tradeoffs to deliver quality and effective solutions on time.
  
• Win as a Company - Every time we win, we win as a company. Every time we lose, we lose as a company. We break down silos, support one another, embrace diversity, and celebrate our successes. We are better together. 
  
• Make a Difference - Every day, we have the opportunity to make a positive impact. We operate with dedication, passion, and uncompromising integrity, creating a safer, more secure world.
  

We want a diverse, global team with a broad range of experience and perspectives. If this job sounds great, but you’re not sure if you qualify, apply anyway! We carefully consider every application and will either move forward with you, find another team that might be a better fit, keep in touch for future opportunities, or thank you for your time.

Pindrop is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Here at Pindrop, it is our mission to create and maintain a diverse and inclusive work environment. As an equal opportunity employer, all qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, disability, marital and/or veteran status.

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