About this role
Improvado Inc.
About the Role
We're a fast-growing Series A startup ($34M raised, $10.3M ARR, 75% gross margin) building the unified marketing intelligence platform for enterprises like Spotify, Asus, and Colgate. Our Platform Team owns the core data pipeline infrastructure powering 500+ integrations — and we're now rebuilding how that work gets done, with AI at the center.
We're looking for a Principal Engineer who can set the technical direction for AI-assisted engineering across the Platform Team — someone who doesn't just use AI tools, but defines how they're used responsibly at scale.
Responsibilities
- Own platform architecture: design and evolve data extraction, load, and pipeline systems serving 500+ integrations at scale
- Identify architectural bottlenecks and drive performance/reliability improvements at scale (Kubernetes, distributed systems, ClickHouse/PostgreSQL)
- Lead modernization of legacy systems (LES, DSAS, ULS) into scalable, AI-native infrastructure
- Design and implement agentic development frameworks for codebase maintenance and continuous improvement — owning the full loop from AI-assisted development to automated acceptance and rollout, with proper validation, testing, and architectural guardrails
- Make and document key technical decisions; set the bar for code quality, system reliability, and performance
- Mentor and level up engineers on AI-assisted development practices — help them ship faster without introducing hidden risk
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product and AI teams on agentic framework rollout and new integration capabilities
Requirements
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7+ years of backend engineering (hands-on programming), with at least 2 years in a principal/architect-level role owning production systems
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You've designed and scaled complex systems, not just maintained them
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Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development (Claude Code, agentic coding) — you ship with it, know its limits and where they break, and have built agentic frameworks for code maintenance and rollout
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Strong distributed systems background: Kubernetes, workflow orchestration (e.g. Temporal), message queues (e.g. RabbitMQ)
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Experience building secure systems that are hard to break, hard to breach, and resilient
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Experience with reliability practices at scale: observability, alerting, incident response
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Solid SQL and query optimization across PostgreSQL and ClickHouse
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Comfortable with ambiguity and high-velocity, fast-shifting priorities — we move like a startup, not a committee
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Ability to work within EST timezone
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Fluency in English
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Nice to Have
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Track record of defining engineering standards and driving adoption across a team
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Experience migrating legacy pipeline systems
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Background in data integration or ETL infrastructure
What We Offer
- Remote-first environment
- Direct impact on platform architecture — your decisions matter
- Modern AI-native tech stack with real freedom to experiment
- 20 PTO days + US holidays
- Stock options
- Professional development reimbursement
- Optional relocation assistance to Latin America after trial period