Principal Software Engineer – AI, Platform

Koala Health

Principal Software Engineer leading technical architecture and AI adoption at Koala Health. Building innovative pet health products and systems for better customer experiences.

Posted 6/26/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $150,000 - $160,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSAzureCloudDistributed SystemsGoogle Cloud PlatformRubyRuby on Rails

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Architecting systems that scale with the business.
Raising engineering quality and operational excellence.
Accelerating development velocity through effective use of AI.
Establishing best practices for AI-assisted and agentic software development.
Mentoring engineers and helping the team make better technical decisions.
Leveraging technology to simplify complex operational workflows and improve customer experiences.
Define and evolve architectural standards across customer-facing and operational systems.
Lead the design of complex software systems, integrations, workflows, and data models.
Drive long-term technical strategy while balancing short-term business priorities.
Identify technical risks and opportunities early and develop pragmatic plans to address them.
Lead architectural reviews and guide major technical decisions across teams.
Establish patterns that improve reliability, maintainability, scalability, and developer productivity.
Champion AI-assisted software development across the organization.
Define best practices for leveraging LLMs in coding, testing, debugging, documentation, code review, and operational workflows.
Design and build agentic systems that automate engineering and business processes.
Evaluate emerging AI technologies and determine where they can create measurable value.
Help iterate on Koala's approach to AI-enabled software development and organizational productivity.
Ensure AI systems are implemented responsibly, securely, and with appropriate operational safeguards.
Raise the bar for code quality, testing, documentation, and operational readiness.
Drive improvements in CI/CD, deployment safety, developer experience, and engineering workflows.
Establish standards for observability, monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
Introduce tooling and automation that improve engineering velocity without sacrificing quality.
Foster a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and technical excellence.
Partner closely with Product, Operations, Pharmacy, Customer Care, Growth, and Finance teams to understand business challenges and design effective solutions.
Translate ambiguous business requirements into scalable technical approaches.
Lead initiatives from concept through implementation, rollout, and operational support.
Ensure technical decisions align with company goals and customer outcomes.
Help mentor engineers across all experience levels.
Provide thoughtful guidance through design reviews, architecture discussions, and code reviews.
Help develop engineering processes that scale as the organization grows.
Serve as a trusted technical advisor to cross-functional stakeholders.
Influence engineering culture through technical leadership rather than organizational authority.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor's degree or equivalent
10+ years of professional software engineering experience building and operating complex, production-scale systems.
Expert-level Ruby on Rails experience with strong knowledge of modern web application architecture, distributed systems, APIs, data modeling, and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
Proven experience leading technical architecture, driving engineering direction, mentoring engineers, and delivering reliable, observable, high-performing systems.
Strong product and business judgment with excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Deep expertise with modern AI development, including LLMs, AI-assisted coding tools (e.g., Claude, Codex, GitHub Copilot), and building AI-powered products, agents, automation, or developer workflows.
Understanding of agent architectures, retrieval systems, tool-calling, evaluation frameworks, and AI system reliability, with a demonstrated ability to use AI to improve engineering velocity and team effectiveness.
Authorization to work in the United States (Koala is not able to sponsor visas for this role).

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, dental, and vision insurance with partial dependent coverage
Generous PTO and a 401(k) plan
Competitive base salary with performance-based incentives
Meaningful mission helping modernize pet health
Remote-first culture built on flexibility and trust

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Ruby on Railsmodern web application architecturedistributed systemsAPIsdata modelingcloud platformsAI developmentLLMsAI-assisted coding toolsautomation

Soft Skills

mentoringtechnical decision-makingcommunicationproduct judgmentbusiness judgmentleadershipcollaborationcontinuous improvementownershipinfluence

Certifications

Bachelor's degree