Principal Engineering

Yourgi's mission is to be pet parents' most trusted source for pet care services. We are building a differentiated experience for both pet parents and pros through our marketplace and software platform. Pet parents book grooming, boarding, daycare, and training, and independent pet-care pros run their businesses with Yourgi Pro, Connect, and Match. We also power booking for Destination Pet's own locations.

We're rebuilding how we deliver: AI-first workflows from spec to deploy, automated testing at every layer, real production monitoring, and continuous delivery. As our first Principal Engineer, you'll set the technical direction for cloud services, service design, and data across API, web, and mobile. You'll own the architecture for our software platform, and you'll lead by example by designing, prototyping, reviewing, coding, and delivering simplicity from complexity and ambiguity.

LOCATION : Remote (US only; must be authorized to work in the US, no visa sponsorship)

REPORTS TO : VP of Engineering

PAY: $275,000 base +20% bonus

CORE RESPONSIBILITES:

• Own the target cloud services architecture on AWS and the roadmap to get there, including simplifying a large estate of Lambda services and reducing dependence on legacy partner systems.
• Lead service design: define service boundaries, event and API patterns, and versioned contracts that stay backward compatible with older app versions.
• Own database design and optimization: data models, schema standards, query and index performance, and the path from today's MySQL databases to a well-governed data architecture.
• Draft architecture and design documentation and chair reviews for any change that crosses teams or touches payments, booking, or customer data.
• Raise the engineering bar for code review, testing strategy (unit through end-to-end and performance), observability, and performance budgets such as P75 latency.
• Partner with Engineering Services on CI/CD, unattended deploys and rollbacks, and production monitoring.
• Shape our spec-driven, AI-assisted delivery workflow with product and design, from PRD to stories, code, tests, and deploy.
• Mentor senior engineers and tech leads, help hire, and assess build-vs-buy decisions with cloud, AI, and third-party cost in view.

30/60/90 plan

First 30 Days: Map the current architecture, data stores, key technical risks, and sources of production issues. Meet with every pod and its leads to understand existing workflows, challenges, and priorities. By the end of the first 30 days, review the current-state architecture and data map with the VP of Engineering and identify and rank the top 10 technical risks.

By Day 60: Publish the target architecture and establish the direction for the data model. Collaborate with the Head of Backend Services to align on API contract and schema standards. By day 60, publish the target architecture and the first five architectural decision records, ensuring that API teams have adopted the agreed-upon contract and schema standards.

By Day 90: Partner with a pod to implement and launch the first component of the target architecture. Run an AI-assisted workflow end to end on a live project to evaluate its effectiveness and practical application. By the end of 90 days, deliver the first architecture improvement to production with measurable results, such as improved latency, reduced costs, or lower error rates, and align with leadership on the 90-day technical roadmap for the next phase.

What will you need?

Required skills and experience

• 12+ years building and running production software, including 4+ years as a staff, principal, or architect-level engineer.
• Deep experience with AWS cloud services, serverless and event-driven systems, and microservice-to-platform migrations.
• A record of designing APIs, services, and data models that many teams and client versions depend on.
• Strong relational database design and performance tuning (MySQL or PostgreSQL), including schema evolution in live systems.
• Hands-on with modern testing, CI/CD, and observability; you've made a team faster and more stable.
• Practical experience using AI coding and agent tools on real codebases, with sound judgment about where they help.
• Clear writing; you persuade with design docs, not authority.

Differentiators

• Marketplace, booking, scheduling, or payments (Stripe) systems.
• Data architecture for analytics: pipelines, a data lake or warehouse (e.g., Snowflake), and event tracking.
• Mobile apps that must support older versions in the field.
• Technical leadership through an org or platform transformation.