Principal Software Engineer (Tech Lead)

Company: Jahnel Group
Location: Schenectady
Posted on: April 1, 2026

Job Description:

Jahnel Group’s mission is to provide the absolute best environment for software creators to pursue their passion by connecting them with great clients doing meaningful work. We get to build some of the most complex and compelling applications for our clients located across the country. We’re a fast-growing INC 5000 recognized company, yet we still work as a very close-knit team (100 employees). We’re growing like crazy, and if you’re looking for the next place to call home, hit us up for a beer or coffee. WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR The Principal Engineer is where technical mastery and visionary leadership collide in a highly complex and broad landscape. As a Principal Engineer, you work on the hardest problems, you are a master in performance, scalability, system architecture, and engineering best practices. Principals are seasoned diplomats and understand how to work exceptionally well with others; you listen, understand, persuade, develop, motivate and are the agent of change. You will be the technical lead for the projects that you work on and ensure success of your projects. As a Principal Engineer, curiosity is essential, excellence is demanded and adding real value and “moving the needle” is the goal. You must be able to set policies to your team, create procedures, and enforce that they are followed while being a role model for everyone around you. PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES Craftsmanship Master in reading, writing, testing and debugging software with several core technical skill sets Master and well known advocate of fundamental tools/concepts relevant to your core skills Master in writing high quality documentation for developers and end users Expected to hold others accountable to high standards and be champion of best practices throughout the organization Problem Solving Master in a variety of software development methods (i.e., Agile, Scrum, etc) and leading multiple teams at the same time Master in software architecture and design (docs, diagrams, etc) Master at planning, designing and estimation techniques and managing workloads for several teams Accountable lead on major efforts (root cause analysis, refactorings, transformational work, etc) Review and create work items/streams for several teams, work with product owners/external stakeholders to design realistic roadmaps Operations Master in source control/branching strategies, pull requests, conducting code reviews and building processes to ensure quality is delivered throughout the pipeline Set the vision for and govern deployment pipelines and the systems that deliver code to environments Vigorously seek to eliminate inefficiencies, require others to improve the process, eliminate waste and cost, etc Directly accountable for establishing and enforcing policies/procedures to monitor production applications. Ensure sufficient training, knowledge and coverage is in place to provide production level support Collaboration Visionary leader, orchestrate effective working sessions, lead discussions Seasoned in coordinating/orchestrating multiple streams of work with multiple teams Create an environment of courtesy/tact and build cross-functional / organizational teams Listen, understand and empathize with others and create a supportive environment Instill a sense of shared organization-wide goals/objectives, do what it takes to achieve them Influence and Impact Have an impact up and down the chain of command, distill information, make critical decisions Persuade, influence, develop and motivate others and be the agent of change Build cross-functional/organizational relationships to get things done Build relationships with external partners, vendors and industry experts Conduct high quality research and analysis and present critical challenges to stakeholders Lead others to operate with and create a shared sense of care and urgency Orientation to learn Self-development is second nature and part of your being Teach others to delegate and elevate, lead by example Implement career development plans, identify and pair mentor/mentee setups Be an organization-wide/industry leader sharing your experience/expertise Skills and Qualifications Software Engineers explore a variety of domains throughout their careers. One may start with front end development and then transition to back end. An application engineer may start learning DevOps and eventually support a product as an SRE. The team is looking for a versatile engineer that can impact a project across multiple service tiers. A typical Software Engineer at this level would meet the qualifications in several of the following domains: Web Front End Master in HTML/CSS/JScript Master in at least one framework (Angular, React, Vue, Svelte, etc) and substantial experience with others and can compare/contrast to select best fit Master in at least one design framework (Material, Bootstrap, Tailwind, etc) and substantial experience with others and can compare/contrast to select best fit Substantial experience with a variety of web technologies/use-cases (static and template generators, CMS, e-Commerce platforms, etc) Service Backend Master in at least one programming languages (JavaScript, C#, GoLang, Python, etc) and substantial experience with others and can compare/contrast to select best fit Master in at least one frameworks (Express.js, .Net , gin, flask, etc) and substantial experience with others and can compare/contrast to select best fit Master in Application Design (APIs, Integrations, Messaging, Streams, Queues, REST, GraphQL, MVC, Websockets, etc) and ability to compare/contrast to select best fit approach Master in a substantial amount of coding concepts (Design Patterns, Functional Programming, DDD, TDD, DRY, SOLID, etc) Data Master in manipulating all types of data formats (JSON, CSV, XML, etc) and proficient with several specialized formats (Proto Buffs, gRPC, Thrift, parquet , etc) Master in several data technologies (RDBMS, NoSQL, Caches, Search-based, Graphs, etc) and ability to compare/contrast to select best fit Master in several processing techniques (ORM/ODM, OLAP/OLTP, ODBC, Batch, Streaming, etc) and ability to compare/contrast to select best fit Cloud Master in at least one cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc) and experience with several others Master in Cloud Architecture (Storage, Networking, CDN, DNS, Docker/Containers, Serverless, Managed services such as RDS/ECS/SQS/SNS, etc) Security Master in common security concepts (threats, vulnerabilities, exploits, etc) Master in security protection techniques and sources (code scanning, dependency updates, OWASP top 10, etc) Master in secure coding practices (input/output validations, sanitization, error checking, filtering, RBAC, etc) Master in cryptography (in transit and at rest, SSL, ciphers, certificates, etc) Expert understanding of regulatory and compliance laws and concepts (Data Privacy, GDPR, CCPA, Health, HIPAA, PII, PHI, Accessibility, WCAG, etc) DevOps Master in git (repo management, branching, merging, etc) Master in several SCM's (GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, etc) Master in several IaC technologies (CloudFormation, CDK, Terraform, Kubernetes, etc) Master in creating and managing pipelines (build, test, scan, deploy, etc) SRE Master in several observability areas (monitoring, logging, alerts, distributed tracing, golden signals, etc) Master in several observability technologies (ELK, Prometheus, DataDog, New Relic, Splunk, etc) Where We're Looking For It: Schenectady, New York 100% Remote for the right candidate Compensation Package (Salary Transparency for US Based Employees) Salary Range: $150,000 - $175,000 Salary is negotiable and the range can be increased based on qualifications, certifications and experience Free Health Insurance Option for all (Single, 2 - Party and Family) 401k Safe Harbor Plan Generous PTO - Maternity / Paternity Leave Revenue Sharing Incentive Certification Reimbursement and Bounty Programs Other Information The work hours will be approximately 9:00 am to 5:00 pm EST, depending on workload, with the occasional late night when a tight deadline calls for it. We work for security-conscious clients, thus background checks will be required. Salary dependent upon experience. Position available immediately.

Keywords: Jahnel Group, Pittsfield , Principal Software Engineer (Tech Lead), IT / Software / Systems , Schenectady, Massachusetts