Principal Full Stack Engineer - Midtown, NY

About the Role Our client is a top-tier strategy and management consulting firm, the kind that competes with McKinsey, BCG and Bain for C-suite work. This role isn't on the client-facing side. It sits in their internal platform and product group, which builds and runs the 30+ products their consultants use to do that work. Your customers are the firm's senior partners, and they notice when things break.
The portfolio falls into three buckets. Some products are legacy and need to be modernized. Some are adding AI features and AI tooling. The rest are new, built from AI use cases still being defined. They're hiring Principal engineers first, then building teams around them, so you'd get in early.
They want engineers who take a product and run it, not ones who wait for a ticket. Expect 70% to 80% of your time in the code, with the rest on architecture and tech leadership. You'll mentor 5 to 7 senior engineers and work closely with product managers. Documentation won't always exist, and when it does, you'll probably be the one improving it.
The stack is React, C# and Python, in a Microsoft/Azure shop. You won't own infrastructure, since another team handles that. They use AI tools daily and expect you to as well.
Location: New York (Hybrid - Midtown) Work Arrangements: Open to 1099, C2C or W2 Duration: 12 month contract - high likelihood of extension based on performance Travel: None
What you'll do:
- Drive and evangelize architecture for new and existing platforms and applications.
- Accountable for delivering thought leadership, strategic direction, and consulting, standards, and technology guidance with the goal in achieving business objectives.
- Design, develop, test, deploy, maintain, and enhance new architectures for both existing business solutions and cutting-edge innovation solutions.
- Leads and participates in the development of architecture strategies, frameworks and architecture governance processes.
- Establishes long-term software architecture direction to ensure sound investment decisions.
- Foster close communication with key stakeholders and product owners to improve transparency regarding engineering costs and the development of service level agreements (SLAs).
- Accelerate the standardization of engineering processes, software libraries, reusable components within the Product Innovation Model across the firm.
- Develop, train, and drive adoption of modern software engineering principles, guidelines, processes, re-usable tools, and technologies to maximize efficiency and accelerate productivity for P&P engineers.
- Ensure alignment, consistency, and uniformity across the firm to help streamline workflows and procedures for product innovation.
- Enhance engineering processes with a focus on efficiency, collaboration, and scalability across the P&P engineering organization.
- Advance the maturity of the engineering guild through technical leadership through best practices and adoption of newer technologies.
- Provide mentorship, create or identify engineering training programs and continuous learning opportunities for all P&P engineers.
- Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to pinpoint opportunities for technological advancements and creative solutions.
- Collaborate with leaders and key stakeholders and continue to contribute expertise on overall technical feasibility, technology selection, implementation approach, and architecture of existing and new solutions.

What you’ll need
- Minimum 10+ years working as a Software Engineer, Software Architect, or similarly technical field.
- Demonstrated expertise in software frameworks, technologies, and development.
- A proven track record of collaborating on technical projects with cross-functional teams.
- Deep experience in hands-on development work to stand up an architecture and drive the adoption within an organization.
- Experience working in accordance with DevSecOps principles, and familiarity with industry deployment best practices using CI/CD tools and IaC (Infrastructure as Code).
- Proven engineering leadership skills, including leading engineering teams and inspiring and motivating cross-functional teams towards a common goal.
- Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to craft innovative solutions.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with diverse stakeholders and influence decision-making; adept at translating complex technical details to diverse audiences.
- Project management skills, including experience with Agile methodologies and project management tools.