Principal Engineer, IO
The Principal Engineer, IO at Ridgeline will provide technical leadership across data engineering domains, including semantic modeling, governance controls, event backbones, durable state systems, and unified data access layers. This role involves driving the adoption of modern architectural patterns, scaling foundational systems, and shaping the long-term technical narrative for data engineering within the company. Ridgeline is a forward-thinking company dedicated to revolutionizing the investment management industry through innovative technology solutions.
Key responsibilities include leading architectural strategy across data engineering, aligning storage, eventing, governance, and access layers under a cohesive long-term vision. The Principal Engineer will establish consistent architectural patterns to reduce duplication, increase replaceability, and strengthen system durability. Additionally, the role involves driving adoption of canonical solutions for event propagation, schema contracts, semantic governance, replication, and query abstraction. The engineer will guide large-scale technical decisions involving distributed coordination, replay semantics, durable state, and cross-region resiliency.
The ideal candidate will have over 12 years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems, with a proven track record of leading cross-team architectural initiatives from concept to production. Deep expertise in event-driven architectures, durable state systems, and distributed coordination is essential. Strong experience with messaging systems such as Kafka, change data capture, replay semantics, and replication strategies is required. Familiarity with query engines, data federation, and abstraction layers separating application logic from storage engines is also important. The candidate should demonstrate the ability to influence senior engineers and executives without direct authority and possess exceptional communication skills to articulate complex technical tradeoffs clearly.
The typical starting salary range for new hires in this role is $255,000 to $300,000 annually. Final compensation amounts are determined by multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, and may vary from the amount listed above. In addition to the base salary, 100% of Ridgeline employees can participate in the Company Stock Plan, subject to the applicable Stock Option Agreement. Ridgeline offers rich benefits, including unlimited vacation, educational and wellness reimbursements, and $0 cost employee insurance plans.
Ridgeline fosters a culture where employees act like owners, choose growth over comfort, and communicate with transparency. The company values positive intent, action-oriented approaches, and solution-focused mindsets. Employees are encouraged to celebrate wins, learn from setbacks, and thrive in a resilient, collaborative, high-performing environment. Joining Ridgeline offers the opportunity to be part of a team dedicated to innovation and excellence in the investment management industry.