Principal Software Engineer

**Title: Principal Software Engineer** **Reports to: SVP, Technology** **Location: Remote or Hybrid within KS, MO, OK, TN, or TX** **Budget: $170k \- $185k DOE** **About the Role** At PaulHood we are transforming the mid\-market CPA industry with an entirely new model. Our year\-round membership model provides clients with expert tax and financial guidance, helping them feel more secure and realize their long\-term financial goals. Founded 30 years ago by Paul Hood, our company has grown rapidly and now serves over 15,000 customers nationwide. To support our continued growth, we have completely modernized our business with technology and processes more akin to a SaaS company than a CPA firm. In response to this growth, we are seeking a **Principal Software Engineer** to help build the engineering foundation that will enable our continued growth and scale. This is a highly hands\-on, Principal\-level individual contributor role designed for an experienced software engineer who is equally comfortable establishing technical direction and building solutions. You will lead the design and development of integrations and workflow automations across our technology ecosystem, establish reusable engineering standards, and help create the Quality Engineering practices that support reliable and scalable software delivery. You will join us at an important stage in our technology evolution. Rather than stepping into a mature software engineering environment with established practices, you will have the opportunity to help define how we approach integration architecture, automation, testing, CI/CD, observability, documentation, and engineering quality as the organization grows. To do this well, the ideal candidate is first and foremost a strong backend or platform software engineer with deep API and systems\-integration experience. You also bring meaningful experience with automated testing and have helped establish or improve Quality Engineering practices. You know when to build custom software, when to leverage an existing platform, and when the simplest solution is the best solution. **What You Will Do** **INTEGRATION AND AUTOMATION** * Reverse\-engineer and stabilize existing business\-critical workflow automations, regardless of the platform on which they were built. * Document workflow purpose, dependencies, credentials, failure modes, business owner, technical owner, monitoring, and recovery procedures. * Design and build integrations using APIs, webhooks, event\-driven patterns, scheduled jobs, low\-code tools, and custom services where appropriate. * Establish standards for source control, testing, CI/CD, secrets management, observability, alerting, auditability, retries, and recovery. * Create reusable connectors and patterns for common PaulHood systems and acquisition integration needs. * Define when work belongs in a workflow platform, custom code, or the data platform, based on business c