Principle Software Engineer

The Company

Friedman Vartolo LLP is a fast-growing, New York-based law firm specializing in real estate and default services, with over 300 employees providing top-tier legal services to our clients in seven states. While our legal expertise sets us apart, it's our mindset that drives us forward. We bring a fresh, fast-paced energy that drives our momentum and shapes how we approach every challenge.

We are a company that chooses to dig deeper, solving problems at the root instead of settling for surface fixes. Here, there are no passengers because every individual adds value, owns outcomes, and moves the firm forward. With an underdog mentality, we embrace constant elevation, always sharpening, always climbing, and never coasting. When challenges come, we row together and lean in as one team to get the job done, no matter what.

The Position

Friedman Vartolo LLP is a default-services law firm building its own software in-house. Leadership builds directly alongside a tight engineering team using modern AI development tooling. We are not a law-firm IT department - we are a real engineering organization inside a law firm, building a category-defining automation platform with direct impact on the firm's strategic direction. We hire few, exceptional engineers and give them outsized ownership.

We are hiring a very small number of exceptional engineers - people who can challenge our most senior engineers on architecture, make the case for a better approach, and be right often enough that it matters. This is not a role for a fast, tidy executor of someone else's design - we have that covered. We want the engineer who sees the better way to build it, wins the argument, and then ships it.

You will work at the core of our automation platform - designing and building the systems the firm runs on - force-multiplied by modern AI tooling, with near-total autonomy and outsized ownership.

Key Responsibilities:

What You'll Do

• Build end-to-end across the stack - front-end, back-end, data, integrations - production systems the firm depends on.
• Turn ambiguous, high-level problems into shipped, working software, fast. You own the path from "here's the problem" to "it's live."
• Use AI development tooling as a genuine force multiplier - we build with Claude and Claude Code; you get more done because you leverage the tools, not despite them.
• Own what you ship - design, build, deploy, and stand behind it.
• Raise the technical bar - bring architecture and engineering judgment strong enough to challenge and sharpen the team's most senior people, not just execute their decisions.

Preferred Skills & Qualifications

What We're Looking For

• Technical depth that challenges the best in the room (the differentiator). You can look at how a strong engineer is approaching a hard problem, see a better architecture, make the case, and be right. System design and engineering judgment are your edge - not just how fast you type.
• Autonomy and throughput - assumed. Given an assignment you run without hand-holding and move fast. We keep a light daily cadence to assign and track work - you show up to it with shipped progress, not a list of blockers. This is the floor, not what sets you apart.
• Build-anything breadth. Genuinely full-stack; not boxed into one layer or one language. You learn what you need and build it.
• AI-tooling fluency. You are already elite at building with AI dev tools - we build with Claude and Claude Code, and that fluency is central to the role, not a bonus.
• Ownership. You stand behind what you ship and don't need the problem fully specified before you start.

You do not need to know the legal domain or our systems on day one - you will learn those. We are hiring for architecture judgment, raw building ability, and the confidence to push back.

What This Role Is Not

• Not a role for a fast executor who needs the design handed to them. That's a different (also-valued) seat. This one owns the design.
• Not a DevOps / reliability / ops role. We have separate ownership for the deployment pipeline and operational work; this is a build seat.
• Not a management role. Hands-on senior individual contributor.

How We Hire

We hire on demonstrated ability, not pedigree. Expect real technical conversation with our Head of Engineering - come ready to defend your choices and push back on his; we're hiring people who make him think. Strong finalists work through a hands-on technical challenge: a small, real, deliberately under-specified problem, tool-open (use whatever you'd use on the job, AI included) - so we judge how you actually build, not how you interview.

Compensation

We offer a compensation package commensurate with experience, within the defined range of [$100,000-110,00 annual]

Benefits

Friedman Vartolo LLP is proud to offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support the well-being and security of our team. Our benefits include:

• Paid parental leave options
• Short and long-term disability leave options
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) and Dependent Care plans
• Commuter benefits including transit, and parking options
• Pet insurance to help care for your furry family members
• 401(k) retirement plans with employer contributions
• Gym and fitness reimbursements to support a healthy lifestyle
• Annual business expense reimbursements for attorneys
• Annual $500 travel budget to attend firm sponsored social events
• Hybrid work flexibility available after 90 days of employment *

*Dependent upon specific position requirements and firm business needs

Equal Opportunity Employer

Friedman Vartolo LLP is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

ADA Compliance

Friedman Vartolo LLP is committed to providing equal employment opportunities and complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and candidates with disabilities, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete your application, participate in a job interview, or take part in any stage of the hiring process, please contact our Recruitment Team at recruitment@friedmanvartolo.com.