Principal Software Engineer

Paperless Parts is a SaaS startup helping manufacturers quote faster and win more work. From rockets to medical devices, we power the parts that move the world forward.   This position requires activities that are subject to US Export Control Laws and require US Citizenship or Green Card Holder.

Paperless Parts provides the manufacturing industry with a SaaS platform that empowers the next generation of manufacturers to join the digital age. When manufacturers use our product, they free up valuable time for faster quoting and estimating, leading to increased profitability and reduced manual steps. From life-saving medical devices to critical components that unlock new depths of outer space, our customers produce parts that go into some of the world’s coolest and most impactful products. It is our mission to enable manufacturers with the technology they need to drive innovation forward.

We are a team of motivated and hardworking creators and doers. If you’re looking to have a direct impact on a Series B fast-scaling company that is revolutionizing an essential industry, read on and apply!

This is a full-time hybrid position based in Boston, MA.

This position requires activities that are subject to US Export Control Laws and require US Citizenship or Green Card Holder.

About the Role 

Step into the role of Principal Software Engineer and serve as a technical force multiplier for our engineering organization. In this high-leverage position, you will look beyond the immediate roadmap to define the architectural vision that will support Paperless Parts for years to come. You will bridge the gap between business strategy and technical execution, ensuring our systems are robust, scalable, and AI-ready.

This role is a powerful catalyst for change and innovation. You will be responsible for modernizing our engineering practices—integrating AI agents into the development lifecycle, driving the evolution from monolithic to a service architecture, and mentoring our engineers to become the next generation of leaders.

Who You Are

• Technical Visionary & Pragmatist: You have a proven track record of evolving complex architectures in scale-up environments. You balance the pursuit of "technical purity" with business reality, making hard trade-offs with incomplete information.
• Force Multiplier: You don't just write great code; you make the entire team better. You are passionate about mentorship and teaching others effective patterns for design, review, and agentic coding.
• AI Pioneer: You think strategically about how AI agents and workflows can fundamentally change how we build software. You believe that "what is good for humans is good for AI," championing standards that serve both.
• Business Partner: You understand that technical debt is a business risk. You can translate complex infrastructure needs into tangible business value (ROI, reliability, speed) to help leadership prioritize effectively.

Why You'll Love Working Here

• Architectural Authority: You will lead the design of our most critical systems, making high-stakes decisions on migrating to distributed architectures and defining our data strategy.
• Optimizing the AI-Native Workflow: You will have the freedom to operationalize AI at scale—implementing agents for ticket resolution, automated reviews, and documentation—driving significant improvements in modern engineering efficiency.
• High-Impact Work: Our software is used in mission-critical industries like aerospace and defense. The reliability and performance standards you set directly impact the production of life-saving and critical components.
• Culture of Excellence: You will help establish a culture of deep observability and operational maturity, leading the charge on incident management and blameless postmortems.

What You'll Do

• Architect & Evolve: Lead the technical strategy for migrating legacy monolithic patterns to scalable, service architectures. You will define the long-term vision for our backend systems, APIs, and cloud infrastructure.
• Operationalize AI Development: Drive the adoption and continuous improvement of AI-assisted workflows (using tools like Cursor and Claude Code). You will champion the strategic integration of AI agents to enhance autonomous task execution and leverage AI throughout the software life cycle.
• Drive Operational Maturity: Instill a strong focus on reliability and site operations across the team. You will lead initiatives to improve observability (logging, monitoring), define clear runbooks, and facilita