Principal Platform Engineer (Technical Architect) - SaaS Platform | AWS | Distributed Systems - Full remote Portugal

Principal Engineer / Technical Architect (AWS/SaaS) - Remote-first, occasional office London

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY

Join a scaling SaaS company at a pivotal moment in its technical evolution. This is a rare opportunity to step into a Principal Engineer / Technical Architect role where you'll have genuine ownership of the platform's architectural direction — not just influence it. You'll work alongside engineering leadership and product teams, leaving a lasting mark on how the platform is built, documented, and scaled for the future. If you're the kind of engineer who thrives on bringing clarity to complexity and raising the bar for the teams around you, this role was designed for you.

PROJECT & CONTEXT

The company operates a growing multi-tenant SaaS platform with a distributed services architecture, cloud infrastructure on AWS, and integrations with external platforms including Salesforce. The engineering organization is maturing rapidly, and this role exists to accelerate that — by strengthening architectural governance, reducing institutional knowledge risk, and ensuring the platform scales with confidence. You'll also play a key role in shaping how emerging AI capabilities are incorporated across the product. Reporting directly to the Head of Engineering, you'll have the visibility, access, and mandate to make a real impact.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a strong focus on SaaS platform architecture
• Proven ability to design and evolve complex, distributed systems at scale
• Hands-on experience with AWS (architecture oversight, not just usage)
• Strong background in backend services, cloud infrastructure, and data systems design
• Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and improving engineering standards across teams
• Ability to establish and maintain architectural documentation, ADRs, and system diagrams
• Experience leading architecture reviews and driving structured technical decision-making
• Strong communicator — able to engage effectively across engineering, product, and leadership
• Fluent in English (written and spoken — required for daily collaboration)

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with multi-tenant SaaS architectures
• Background in real-time systems — telephony, messaging, or streaming platforms
• Familiarity with AI-enabled product development
• Experience with Salesforce integrations
• Prior experience establishing architecture governance or a principal engineer function within a growing team