Senior Principal Software Architect

What You’ll Do

Own and Build Agentic AI Platforms

• Architect and build scalable agentic AI systems that power various seamless experiences for customers that drive conversion and customer delight.
• Develop multi-agent systems that reason, plan, and take actions across tools and services 
• Build Autonomous agents operating across end-to-end customer journeys 
• Build reusable platforms, not one-off solutions 
• Enable multiple teams to innovate independently

Drive End-to-End Technical Strategy

• Define platform abstractions and reusable capabilities that enable teams across the organization to build and deploy AI-powered experiences independently
• Lead design of systems leveraging multimodal data (photos, metadata, behavioral signals) to power personalization at scale
• Define and lead architecture for AI platforms integrated into Shutterfly
• Build foundational capabilities including: 
  • Evaluation frameworks for AI quality, safety, and business impact 
  • Scalable inference and orchestration infrastructure 
• Ensure systems are highly available, performant, and production-grade at scale 

Be Deeply Hands-On

• Maintain deep hands-on involvement in prototyping, architecture, and critical production systems, setting the standard for engineering excellence.
• Leverage modern AI tooling (LLMs, agents, vector databases, orchestration frameworks) 
• Set the standard for AI-driven engineering productivity and development practices 
• Lead by example in coding, design reviews, and system debugging 

Deliver Measurable Business Impact

• Define and track AI-specific success metrics, including model quality, latency, cost efficiency, and business KPIs
• Partner with Product, UX, and Data teams to translate AI capabilities into: 
  • Increased conversion and revenue 
  • Improved customer experience and engagement 
  • Faster time-to-market for new capabilities 
• Drive experimentation (A/B testing) and ensure AI systems deliver quantifiable outcomes 

Lead Across the Organization

• Influence architecture and execution across multiple teams and domains: 
  • Ecommerce platform (shopping, cart, checkout) 
  • Creation flows and personalization systems 
  • Marketing technology and lifecycle platforms 
• Mentor senior engineers and leaders; raise the bar on AI and system design excellence 
• Champion adoption of agentic AI and AI-first development practices across engineering 

What Success Looks Like

• Agentic AI systems measurably improve conversion, AOV, and engagement 
• AI capabilities are deeply embedded across customer journeys 
• Teams adopt AI-first development practices at scale 
• Platform enables rapid experimentation and innovation across orgs

Basic Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience with deep expertise in distributed systems 
• Proven track record of architecting and delivering large-scale, high-impact systems 
• Experience influencing and leading cross-organizational technical strategy 
• Strong hands-on coding and system design skills 
• Experience operating large-scale, highly available cloud systems 
• Demonstrated ability to translate advanced technology into business impact

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building 0→1 AI platforms or products in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• Experience building AI/ML systems, especially with: 
  • LLMs, agent frameworks, and retrieval systems 
  • Multi-agent architectures and orchestration 
• Experience in consumer-facing products or ecommerce platforms