Principal Software Engineer

Description:

As the Principal Engineer in NETGEAR’s new Center of Excellence in Cork, you will lead the architectural vision for Netgear.com shaping the foundation of our retail experience. You will be responsible for designing, developing, and optimizing eCommerce solutions that deliver seamless user experiences and drive business growth.

This role is central to NETGEAR’s transformation, requiring deep technical expertise and strategic insight to drive the end-to-end system architecture. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, setting architectural standards that ensure a cohesive and forward-looking technical ecosystem for our product line.

As a hybrid role, you'll work from the Cork office at least two days a week, providing the flexibility to balance in-person collaboration with remote work. Your contributions will be pivotal in NETGEAR’s evolution, driving a digital transformation as the company shifts towards a software-driven model.

Specific Responsibilities

Collaborative Technical Vision:

Partner with Engineering leadership across functions to develop an end-to-end technical vision for NETGEAR's retail offering. 
Ensure this vision aligns with NETGEAR's overall business goals. 

Architectural Leadership

Develop and implement the architectural strategy for the retail website. 
Integrate various services and third-party applications using best practice to ensure maintainability and effective deployment processes. 
Work closely with cross-functional teams, including developers, designers, and product managers, to deliver cohesive eCommerce solutions. 
Ensure the architecture is designed for scalability, resilience, and security, supporting future growth and enhancements. 
Monitor and optimize application performance, including page load speeds, responsiveness, and SEO compliance. 

Comprehensive Systems Understanding

Maintain a deep understanding of how end to end systems interact and their various interdependencies. 
Provide guidance on system-wide concerns, ensuring a smooth flow of data and interactions across mobile, web, and hardware devices such as routers. 

Hands-on Problem Solving

Be an active contributor to the development process, diving into the codebase to address critical technical challenges. 
Create proof-of-concepts or reference implementations that demonstrate architectural solutions to key problems, setting a standard for the rest of the engineering team. 

Collaboration And Mentorship

Serve as a mentor and technical leader for distributed systems engineers, fostering best practices in software development, cloud architecture, and DevOps. 
Provide guidance on how to progressively realize the architectural vision, offering support and expertise as the team moves through each stage of development. 

Cross-Functional Collaboration And Evangelism

Collaborate closely with product management, engineering teams, and operations to ensure that the backend architecture supports both immediate and long-term product goals. 
Work across NETGEAR teams to promote and standardize the use of common tools, practices, and technology stacks. 
Advocate for the adoption of architectural best practices and foster a culture of innovation, ensuring that all teams are aligned with the overall architectural strategy. 

A Typical Day Might Include

Morning Stand-up: Kick off the day with a quick team meeting to discuss progress, roadblocks, and goals. 
Technical Analysis: Review current architecture, understand and document challenges as well as proposing solutions. 
Proof of concept: Undertake proof of concept on a new approach or technical strategy. 
Technical Mentorship: Work alongside developers to troubleshoot issues, review design or code. 
Architecture reviews with CTO, VP of Engineering and others to agree strategy. 

About You

Required Qualifications:

Experience: At least 15 years of software development experience, with a significant focus implementing multi-country, multi-language e-commerce sites using Salesforce Commerce Cloud or similar. 
Knowledge of Content Management Systems such as Cententful, ContentStack, Kentico or similar. 
Strong Technical and Business Judgment: Ability to balance long-term technical vision with short-term business goals, ensuring immediate impact while supporting future scalability. 
Architectural Expertise: Proven experience in architecting scalable systems for consumer web and mobile applications, with a deep technical understanding of distributed systems. 
Frontend Development: Expertise in designing and developing SPA or PWAs with frameworks such as React, Vue or similar. 
Programming Skills: Proficiency in several of the following languages: JavaScript, Node.js, Java, Python, TypeScript. 
Agile Environment: Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced Agile software development environment with frequent software releases. 
Leadership & Collaboration: Demonstrated leadership skills, including mentoring engineers and promoting best practices in software engineering, cloud architecture, and DevOps within cross-functional teams. 
Self-Starter: Proactive, resourceful, and able to navigate complex corporate environments with a strong “get-things-done” attitude. 
Education: B.Sc. in Computer Science or equivalent vocational experience