Principal Software Engineer

About the role

We’re looking for talented professionals to join us in bringing smart money management and payment solutions to everyone’s fingertips.

This position is classified as structured hybrid, with an expectation of a minimum of three (3) days per week working in the office and flexibility to work remotely on the remaining days. On-site expectations may evolve over time to support business needs, with clear communication provided in advance.

Location Requirement

This position is open only to candidates who currently reside in one of the following approved locations:

West Los Angeles, CA

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled and motivated Lead Software Engineer to join our Firewire team, supporting a highly transactional (approx. 500-800 TPS) system. This role will be instrumental in building and supporting scalable, secure, and high-performance systems that enable embedded financial services across our partner ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of APIs and microservices that support Firewire stack.
• Design, develop, and oversee large-scale software systems, ensuring alignment with business goals and long-term scalability. Make high-level design choices and establish coding standards, design patterns, and architectural principles for the engineering organization
• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and other engineering teams to define technical requirements and deliver robust solutions.
• Drive engineering excellence through code reviews, mentoring, and best practices in CI/CD, testing, and observability.
• Ensure compliance with SLA standards and contribute to the development of monitoring and alerting systems.
• Lead incident response and root cause analysis to improve system reliability.
• Drive architectural decisions and long-term technical strategy for BaaS platform, including generating documentation around architectural and design options analysis and decisions.
• Champion emerging technologies evaluation and adoption.
• Refactor and extend the existing codebase to fix defects and add features/functionality
• Create systems that are durable and flexible by developing for change – favor configurability over customization.
• Manage software development projects, including planning, system analysis, testing, deployment, and troubleshooting complex issues
• Operate in an AI driven SDLC environment and familiarity with AI code assistants like GitHub Copilot or similar tools.
• Work closely with product managers, architects, and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into robust technical designs and ensure software meets user needs
• Drive adoption of new technologies, frameworks, and development methodologies, and develop prototypes or proofs-of-concept to mitigate implementation risks

Qualifications

• 9+ years of hands-on experience in software engineering, with at least 2 years in a technical leadership role.
• Strong portfolio of work showing experience developing secure and standards-compliant code across multiple platforms.
• Advanced experience in several of the following languages/platforms/libraries: C#,.NET, SQL, and hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure native services such as APIM, Azure SQL, Cosmos DB and Key Vault), container technologies, and caching frameworks.
• Deep understanding of RESTful API design, OAuth2, and OpenAPI specifications.
• Strong expertise in event-driven (Service Bus, Event Hubs) and microservice based architecture patterns.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex software issues, work independently, and provide innovative solutions
• Hands-on experience with leveraging and implementing observability dashboards and platforms (Datadog, Grafana).
• Strong leadership, communication, and collaboration skills, with a passion for quality, learning, and mentoring
• Ability to handle a fast-paced environment for iterative project turnarounds on mission & revenue critical, customer-facing applications
• Deep knowledge in Git, DevOps, Agile Scrum, and security best practices in financial services and compliance standards (PCI DSS, SOC 2).

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in fintech or embedded finance platforms.
• Familiarity with partner integration workflows using API and SLA management.
• Contributions to open-source projects or technical publications.

Ability to meet the location requirement outlined above

Position Type

Contractor

Pay Range

The targeted base salary for this position is $159,400 to $229,300 per year. The final compensation will be determined by a number of factors such as qualifications, expertise, and the candidate’s geographical location.

Work Authorization Requirement

At Green Dot Corporation, we value diversity and strive for fair and inclusive hiring practices. However, we are currently unable to offer visa sponsorship. All applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States at the time of application and throughout the duration of employment, without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Important Notice on Application Accuracy

• We value integrity in our hiring process.
• Please ensure that all information provided in your resume and application is accurate and authentic.
• Submissions found to be fraudulent or misleading will result in disqualification from consideration, and any offers extended may be rescinded.