Principal Software Engineer

Hybrid role: 3 days/week in office

Role Overview

As a Principal Software Engineer at MediaAlpha, you will be a technical leader accountable at the ecosystem level. You own the architecture, health, and strategic technical direction across large and complex systems that span multiple teams—ensuring sound design, operational excellence, and alignment with business needs across the ecosystem. You will shape broad architecture, partner with engineering and business leaders to define roadmaps, and drive technical standards that the organization builds on.

Principal Engineers are hands-on technical leaders. You write code, make architectural decisions, and solve the hardest technical problems in the ecosystem. Your work sets the standard for engineering quality and shapes how systems evolve. The difference at this level is that your technical contributions have ecosystem-wide impact—you define the patterns, frameworks, and architectural direction that other engineers build within.

Everything we build, decide, and deliver is measured against four pillars: Fast, Flexible, Robust, and Transparent. Principal Engineers serve these pillars through architectural clarity that eliminates wasted motion, systems designed for change and adaptability, patterns and standards that ensure long-term health, and active ambassadorship that makes technical direction visible across the organization.

The ideal candidate is a masterful engineer who operates at ecosystem scope—driving technical strategy across teams and groups, shaping architecture that spans organizational boundaries, and developing senior technical leaders. You operate effectively across organizational boundaries, mentor and lead engineers throughout the organization, and drive technical excellence at ecosystem scale. We are an intentionally small organization, designed for agility, speed, collaboration, and workability, where Principal Engineers serve as the technical authorities and go-to leaders across multiple teams and groups.

Responsibilities

Ecosystem Architecture & Technical Ownership

• Own large and complex systems end to end with accountability at the ecosystem level—ensuring sound requirements, design, architecture, coding, processes, and operations for holistically complete solutions
• Shape broad architecture by leading projects involving multiple large components, complex libraries, or major pieces of application infrastructure, with multi-quarter strategic vision
• Proactively monitor and maintain the health of all systems within your area of accountability, identifying and driving high-risk, long-term tradeoff decisions at the ecosystem level

Engineering Standards & Technical Strategy

• Define new patterns and advanced methodologies that ensure all engineering work maintains standards for maintainability, scalability, security, reliability, privacy, and compliance at ecosystem scale
• Partner with technical leaders to establish and evangelize standards for architecture, code quality, and system design across the engineering organization
• Identify and proactively tackle system-wide and organizational technical debt, driving measurable improvements in platform health and engineering effectiveness

Leadership & Cross-Organizational Influence

• Lead at the group level as a role model; actively mentor engineers throughout the organization and guide senior technical leaders in decision-making at the feature and component level
• Develop senior technical leaders toward broader impact—growing their ability to own systems, set standards, and influence architecture beyond their immediate team
• Engage cross-team and cross-organizational stakeholders to define strategy, principles, goals, and requirements that align technical direction with business needs
• Represent groups and ecosystems to the broader company; be accountable for ecosystem infrastructure, design, and architecture and serve as the go-to technical authority across teams

Requirements

• 10+ years experience in software development with a track record of increasing technical scope and organizational influence
• Demonstrated ability to own and drive ecosystem-level technical initiatives spanning multiple teams and multiple quarters from conception through completion
• Track record of defining architectural patterns, engineering standards, and frameworks that are adopted and referenced across an organization
• Experience mentoring and developing engineers at multiple levels, including guiding senior technical decision-making
• Proven ability to shape broad architecture and lead complex, multi-component projects that span organizational boundaries
• Strong understanding of software engineering methodologies, system design, and architecture at the ecosystem level
• Strong SQL skills and understanding of database and query optimizations
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to represent technical strategy and architectural direction to both engineering and business audiences
• Ability to identify and drive high-risk, long-term tradeoff decisions with sound judgment and clear rationale
• A self-starter, comfortable with ambiguity, who creates clarity and structure for others
• B.S. in a technical discipline preferred; equivalent experience and a proven track record of results will be valued equally

The Bottom Line

The measure of a Principal Engineer’s success is the health and trajectory of the ecosystems they own.

The best Principal Engineers define the architectural direction that guides technical decisions across teams, set engineering standards that raise the bar for the entire organization, solve the problems no one else can, and develop the engineers around them into stronger technical leaders.

Compensation & Benefits

We are excited to offer a competitive base pay range of $200,000 to $350,000 per year for this position, based on experience and qualifications. But that's not all - as a valued member of our team, you will also have access to an array of top-notch benefits, including:

• Annual bonus program and participation in our Restricted Stock Unit program
• 100% Employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance for you, your dependents, and spouse or registered domestic partner
• 100% Employer paid long term disability, and life insurance
• 401(k) retirement plan with matching contributions to help you plan for your future
• Open Paid Time Off policy with a Brthday Hookie day off, 13 holiday, and 5 Recharge days
• Professional development reimbursement along with a subscription to LinkedIn Learning 
• Cell Phone, Wellness, and Internet expense reimbursement, along with a subscription to the Calm App
• 100% fully paid parental leave for team members up to 22 weeks for the primary caregiver and 12 weeks for the secondary caregiver 
• Dog-friendly offices (LA and AZ) along with a $300 pet adoption reimbursement