Principal Software Engineer - Agentic PDLC/SDLC

What we’re building and why we’re building it. Fetch helps people live rewarded every day, with a vision to become the rewards destination for everyone. We turn everyday activities into meaningful rewards, whether it’s grocery shopping, grabbing a quick meal, or playing a favorite mobile game. To date, we’ve awarded more than $1 billion in Fetch Points to our users. Each day, more than 13 million receipts are submitted on Fetch, providing visibility into over $212 billion in gross merchandise value. This creates the largest retail-agnostic, SKU-level view of household spending, powering Fetch as an outcomes-based advertising platform that helps brands acquire and retain lifelong consumers. The Fetch app is available on the App Store and Google Play, with more than 6 million five-star reviews from a highly engaged and loyal user base. It’s not just our users who believe in Fetch: with investments from Softbank, ICONIQ, DST, Greycroft, and partnerships ranging from challenger brands to Fortune 500 companies, Fetch is reshaping how brands and consumers connect in the marketplace. When you work at Fetch, you play a vital role in a platform that drives brand loyalty and creates lifelong consumers with the power of Fetch points. User and partner success are at the heart of everything we do, and we extend that same commitment to our employees. At Fetch, we value curiosity, adaptability, and the confidence to explore new tools, especially AI, to drive smarter, faster work. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should be ready to learn quickly and think critically. We welcome learners who move fast, challenge the status quo, and shape what’s next, with us. Ranked as one of America’s Best Startup Employers by Forbes for two years in a row, Fetch fosters a people-first culture rooted in trust, accountability, and innovation. We encourage our employees to challenge ideas, think bigger, and always bring the fun to Fetch. Meet Fetch AI & Data AI & Data at Fetch sit at the center of how we understand our business, make decisions, and build intelligent products. The organization operates as an integrated AI & data ecosystem, spanning multiple disciplines, including data engineering, analytics engineering, machine learning, experimentation, and data platforms, all working together to turn data into durable business and customer impact. Teams operate in complex problem spaces where requirements evolve, tradeoffs are constant, and the right answer is rarely obvious. Success depends on strong technical judgment, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to gather context and make informed decisions while balancing quality, performance, scalability, and responsible use. Practitioners across this org contribute hands-on to production systems, analytical foundations, and intelligent features. You will collaborate closely with product, platform, and engineering partners, help shape standards and best practices, and ensure our AI and data capabilities scale reliably as Fetch grows. About the Role: Fetch is evolving its AI-first mode into a more operational and scaled position, and we are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to design, scale, and evolve the intelligent platforms that power our Product and Software Development Life Cycles (PDLC/SDLC). In this role, you will define and execute the company-wide strategy for transitioning Fetch into an agentic engineering ecosystem, where autonomous AI agents, multi-modal LLM frameworks, and intelligent developer tools directly amplify human capabilities at scale. Sitting at the intersection of Developer Experience (DevX), platform infrastructure, and generative AI systems engineering, you will lead the technical vision to automate heavy SDLC workloads and optimize engineering workflows. This is a hands-on, high-impact technical IC role with massive influence across multiple engineering collectives. Your goal is to fundamentally redefine our engineering velocity and platform performance while setting organizational standards for system reliability, model safety, and strict verification gates. As a Principal Software Engineer, you balance deep software craftsmanship with strategic, company-level influence, engineering systems that endure, scale, and secure Fetch’s infrastructure for its next phase of growth. This is a full-time role that can be held from one of our US offices or remotely in the United States. What you’ll do at Fetch (Role Responsibilities): Engineering Excellence & Architectural Leadership Architect Enterprise DevX Infrastructure Design and evolve scalable systems supporting AI-assisted development (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code integrations), autonomous code refactoring, simulation testing environments, automated OKR tracking, and feedback-driven observability Set Organizational Standards Redefine and enforce company-wide technical standards for system reliability, performance, observability, and architectural health across all PDLC/SDLC platforms Architect for Extreme Scale Lead the system design and evolution of distributed cloud-native developer platforms supporting autonomous code refactoring, simulation testing environments, and feedback-driven observability Establish Rigid AI-Validation Frameworks Define company-wide standards for automated contract, regression, and safety checks to ensure AI-generated or refactored code is rigorously validated before reaching production Simplify Systemic Complexity Proactively identify organization-level bottlenecks and redesign systems to minimize operational costs while maximizing long-term velocity and reliability Direction, Strategy & Impact Define Multi-Year Technical Vision Establish the direction for agentic development beyond a single organization, guiding multiple engineering areas and influencing Fetch's long-term success Solve the Unsolvable Resolve deeply complex, ambiguous, cross-organizational technical challenges that have blocked major company initiatives or that few others can solve Quantify Technical Tradeoffs Align technical strategy with company business direction, translating platform optimizations and AI capabilities into measurable numbers (e.g., cycle time reduction, defect escape drops, and review rework percentage decreases) Exercise "Do Not Build" Judgment Evaluate industry trends and external technologies critically, demonstrating high-signal judgment on when to leverage tools and where to block implementations to protect compliance, IP, or reliability People, Collaboration & Culture Mentor at Scale Mentor and sponsor industry-level staff/principal engineers and managers across organizational boundaries, visibly growing their technical depth, systems thinking, and leadership capability Sustain Organizational Culture Build and foster inclusive technical communities internally and externally, maintaining morale, psychological safety, and alignment during periods of organizational change Navigate High-Stakes Disagreements Resolve complex, divergent cross-functional views (between Engineering, Product, Data Science, and Legal) with empathy, clarity, and data-driven principles In your Toolbox (Minimum Requirements): 15+ years of software engineering experience, including a strong track record as a Principal Engineer or equivalent company-level technical authority, leading the architecture of distributed systems and large-scale enterprise developer platforms. Deep experience designing, scaling, and evolving development platforms powered by agentic AI tools that support product development and the full software development lifecycle across large organizations. Deep technical mastery in Developer Experience (DevX) or Platform Engineering, with proven experience building or scaling modern CI/CD pipelines, containerized environments, event streaming, and advanced telemetry layers Proven experience operationalizing GenAI workflows at scale, including hands-on application of multi-modal LLM agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Semantic Kernel, Haystack) or Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems inside an enterprise engineering ecosystem Demonstrated company-wide impact leading multi-quarter, multi-team technical initiatives that fundamentally transformed developer velocity, code quality, or resource efficiency Expert-level fluency in metric trees, with the ability to tie complex platform architectures directly to north-star business KPIs while operating within strict, non-negotiable operational guardrails Strong data-driven intuition for risk modeling and tradeoff analysis, with a clear framework for balancing acceleration against blast-radius control and understanding where AI creates leverage versus where traditional optimization approaches are more effective Exceptional communication skills, with a proven ability to drive company-level technical decisions and communicate effectively across engineering, executive leadership, cross-functional stakeholders, and non-technical partners Nice to haves/Bonus Points (Preferred Requirements): Industry eminence demonstrated through open-source contributions, technical publications, conference speaking, or other work that has shaped engineering practices across the broader technology community Proven success building first-party platform capabilities and automated frameworks that eliminate reliance on costly third-party development infrastructure and tooling Strong expertise operating within compliance and privacy constraints, including designing systems aligned with frameworks such as SOC2, GDPR, and CCPA while enforcing strict privacy and redaction boundaries across automated AI pipelines Expert-level proficiency in modern concurrent backend programming languages such as Go, Java, Kotlin, or Python, backed by a strong polyglot engineering background Compensation: At Fetch, we offer competitive compensation packages including base, equity, and benefits to the exceptional folks we hire. Discover our benefits and how our employees live rewarded at https://fetch.com/careers . At Fetch, we'll give you the tools to feel healthy, happy and secure through: Equity: We offer full-time employees equity in Fetch, so that everyone can benefit from Fetch’s growth. 401k Match: Dollar-for-dollar match up to 4%. Benefits for humans and pets: We offer comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans for everyone including your pets. Continuing Education: Fetch provides ten thousand per year in education reimbursement. Employee Resource Groups: Take part in employee-led groups that are centered around fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace through events, dialogue and advocacy. The ERGs participate in our Inclusion Council with members of executive leadership. Paid Time Off: On top of our flexible PTO, Fetch observes 9 paid holidays, as well as our year-end week-long break. Robust Leave Policies: 20 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, 14 weeks for secondary caregivers, and a flexible return to work schedule. Calvin Care Cash: Employees who are welcoming new family members will also receive a one time $2,000 incentive to assist employees with covering the cost of childcare, clothing, diapers and much more! Flexible Work Environment: Collaborate with your team in one of our stunning offices, or you can work fully remotely from anywhere in the US. We’ll ensure you are equally equipped with the hardware and software you need to get your job done in the comfort of your home. (applicable for most roles) Fetch is an equal opportunity employer that embraces diversity, inclusion, and respect for all individuals. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Our commitment to inclusivity ensures that everyone is treated with dignity and has the opportunity to succeed based on their talent, skills, and potential. Fetch also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities or those with sincerely held religious beliefs, as required by law. If you need assistance with the application process or require an accommodation, please contact us at [email protected].