Principal Engineer — Full Stack, Cloud & AI
Austin, United States | Posted on 05/22/2026
Location: Remote — Austin, TX preferred | Fly-in 3–4 days twice monthly
Type: 6-Month Contract-to-Hire | Conversion: Full-time upon mutual agreement | Relocation to Austin expected at conversion
Reports To: President & CEO
Compensation: $90–$110/hr contract | Conversion: $160,000–$185,000 base + performance bonus + equity
Pandesco is a boutique MSP and SaaS technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas, serving specialty, luxury retail, and consumer products clients. We build proprietary software and deliver managed services that help our clients modernize, operate efficiently, and grow. We are a small, fast‑moving team where everyone is a builder and every contribution is visible.
We are entering a critical growth phase — our platform is in active development targeting commercial release within the year, and we need a principal‑level engineer to own the technical architecture and lead the development team through it.
The Role
This is not a review‑and‑approver role. You will be the most senior technical individual contributor at Pandesco — designing systems, writing production code, setting engineering standards for the entire organization, and making the architectural calls that determine how we build.
You will lead and direct the developer team, onshore and offshore, while remaining deeply hands‑on yourself. You will work in close partnership with the President & CEO, who serves as product owner, and with the Director of Technical Architecture on platform and infrastructure alignment.
AI is not a future consideration at Pandesco — it is embedded in how we build today. You must be an active, enthusiastic user of AI in your day‑to‑day development work. Candidates who are resistant to or uncomfortable with AI‑assisted development will not be a fit, regardless of their technical credentials. We expect our Principal Engineer to be extending and advancing our AI capabilities, not catching up to them.
If you are an architect who has drifted away from the keyboard and wants to stay in management, this is not your role. If you are a builder who thinks at the system level, owns decisions end‑to‑end, and is energized by greenfield platform work — this was written for you.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the technical architecture of Pandesco's SaaS platform — design, implement, and evolve it as the product scales toward commercial release.
- Write production code daily — .NET (C#) backend, React frontend, Azure services, data pipelines.
- Set and enforce engineering standards across all Pandesco engineering teams, onshore and offshore.
- Lead, mentor, and direct the developer team — code reviews, architecture reviews, technical direction.
- Design and implement multi‑tenant SaaS systems with RBAC and SBAC patterns.
- Integrate AI‑powered capabilities into the platform — LLM orchestration, RAG pipelines, agentic AI workflows, and MCP‑based architectures.
- Integrate Azure Key Vault, managed identities, and secure coding practices into every system you build.
- Assess engineering team composition and make recommendations on LATAM team structure and hiring.
- Produce clear architecture documentation — diagrams, API specs, ADRs, runbooks, and handoff guides.
- Fly in to Austin 3–4 days twice monthly for collaborative design sessions, team building, and client‑facing work.
Requirements
Required Qualifications
- AI‑forward mindset — you actively use AI tools in your development workflow and have strong opinions about how to apply them effectively. Resistance to AI is disqualifying.
- 10+ years of professional software development with demonstrated architect‑level decision making.
- .NET / C# — production‑grade API and service architecture, not just contribution.
- React — production frontend experience, component architecture, state management.
- Azure Key Vault — integrated into application code as standard practice, every system.
- Multi‑tenant SaaS architecture — you have designed and owned tenant isolation at both application and database levels.
- RBAC / SBAC — implementation at the application layer, not just platform configuration.
- AI integration — LLM APIs, RAG pipelines, and production AI features shipped in real applications.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) — building or consuming MCP servers, agentic AI architectures.
- SQL — complex data modeling, stored procedures, performance optimization at scale.
- Proven track record leading and mentoring engineering teams.
- Strong communication skills — you can present technical decisions to executive and client stakeholders with clarity and confidence.
- Willingness to fly in to Austin 3–4 days twice monthly and relocate upon full‑time conversion.
Preferred Qualifications
- Microsoft Fabric — pipelines, lakehouses, Delta tables, semantic models, Direct Lake.
- Python, PySpark, or Databricks for data engineering workloads.
- Experience in an MSP or technology consulting environment.
- Familiarity with Logic Apps — build, configure, and hand off to operations.
The Contract‑to‑Hire Structure
This role opens as a 6‑month contract. The intent is full‑time conversion for the right person. During the contract period you will be evaluated on technical leadership, platform delivery, team development, and client‑facing presence. Conversion criteria are defined upfront — no ambiguity at month six. Relocation to Austin is expected upon conversion; for the contract period, fly‑in twice monthly is fully supported.
What We Offer
- $90–$110/hr during the contract period.
- Full‑time conversion at $160,000–$185,000 base commensurate with experience.
- Performance bonus and equity participation at conversion.
- A principal‑level seat with real authority — you set the standards, not follow them.
- Direct access to CEO and technical leadership.
- A platform in active development where your architectural decisions ship to production.
- A lean, talented team where your contributions are visible and your impact is immediate.