AdTechTalent
Engineering1 month agoRemote

Smartly

Principal Engineer, Platform

principal engineerdistributed systemsrelational databasesscalabilityreliabilityAI agentscloudinfrastructurearchitecturementoringtechnical leadershiphybrid work

Key details

Salary

Not specified

Employment type

Full-time

Seniority

Senior

Years experience

5-10

Location

Helsinki, Finland

Full job description

Principal Engineer role in the Platform Group responsible for guiding teams through complex technical challenges, shaping platform technical direction, and driving initiatives to improve scalability, reliability, and developer productivity. The role involves ownership of foundational systems including large-scale databases, distributed systems, infrastructure, and platform services. Reporting to the Chief Architect, the engineer collaborates with engineering teams and product leaders. Responsibilities include advising on technical vision, delivering large-scale initiatives, participating in design reviews and incident analysis, leading cross-team projects, addressing system bottlenecks, mentoring engineers, and participating in recruitment. Requirements include 3+ years at senior technical leadership levels, proven success leading multi-team initiatives, 5+ years managing production systems with critical database concerns, strong distributed systems knowledge, and excellent communication skills. Bonus points for experience with analytical databases, cloud infrastructure, AI agent systems, and reliability engineering. The position offers a hybrid work model based in Helsinki, Finland, with benefits including healthcare, equity, career development, and a diverse inclusive culture.

What you'll do

  • Advise and drive Smartly's technical vision and strategy, setting and upholding high standards for technical quality, scalability, and operational excellence
  • Drive execution through architecture, design, and hands-on technical contributions, delivering large-scale technical initiatives
  • Remain actively involved in design reviews, prototyping, incident analysis, and implementation of critical technical components
  • Lead complex cross-team projects advancing platform architecture and long-term technical vision
  • Identify and address scalability, reliability, observability and performance bottlenecks across critical systems
  • Share learnings and knowledge across the organization, mentor engineers, and raise engineering standards
  • Participate in recruitment and help maintain high engineering standards across teams

Requirements

  • 3+ years operating at Staff, Principal, Lead Engineer, or equivalent level, driving technical strategy across multiple teams
  • Proven track record leading multi-quarter technical initiatives spanning 3+ engineering teams and delivering measurable improvements in scalability, reliability, developer productivity, or operational efficiency
  • 5+ years operating production systems where relational database architecture, scalability, reliability, and performance were critical concerns (e.g. 99.9%+ availability targets)
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems and experience making architectural decisions involving consistency, availability, partition tolerance, replication and sharding
  • Demonstrated success influencing technical direction without direct managerial authority
  • High bar for quality of code, testing, and quality of user experience
  • Ability to communicate complex technical topics clearly to a wide range of stakeholders
  • Ability to listen well and internalize the best ideas from across the organization while also setting a vision that others are excited to get behind

Tech stack

AI agentsdistributed systemsrelational databasesshardingreplicationClickHouseBigQuerySnowflakecloud platformsinfrastructure

Benefits

Inclusive global culture with over 750 employees from 60+ nationalities across 24 locations in 13 countriesGlobal impact influencing customers' success and business growthHealthcare packages and mental health servicesWork-life balance with paid holidays and family leaveEquity options and performance-based rewardsCompetitive compensation and career development opportunitiesFlexible hybrid workplace with option to work abroad for up to 30 days annually

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