Candescent is a forward-thinking technology company transforming how financial institutions deliver Intelligent Banking experiences. We unite digital banking, account opening, and branch solutions that power and connect digital banking, account opening, and branch solutions—creating seamless engagement across digital, remote, and in-person channels.
Our Experience-Led, Intelligence-Driven approach combines human-centered design with data, automation, and cloud-based innovation. Built on an API-first architecture, our extensible ecosystem enables institutions to adapt quickly, integrate easily, and unlock new opportunities for growth—turning every customer interaction into a moment of clarity, confidence, and connection.
The Principal Engineer – Developer Experience is a senior technical leadership role responsible for designing, building, and championing world‑class developer experiences across Candescent’s digital banking platform. This role is hands‑on and externally visible, with approximately 60% of time spent writing production‑quality code and 40% dedicated to conferences, customer meetings, partner engagements, and technical presentations.
You will serve as both a deep technical contributor and a developer advocate, shaping API platforms, extensibility patterns, and integration experiences while representing Candescent to customers, partners, and the broader developer community. This role requires strong API and Java expertise, excellent problem‑solving skills, and the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, compelling narratives for technical and non‑technical audiences alike.
Key Responsibilities and Deliverables
- Design, build, and maintain high‑quality APIs, SDKs, and developer tooling, spending the majority of your time hands‑on in code.
- Lead architectural decisions for developer experience, integrations, and platform extensibility, ensuring scalability, security, and performance.
Design, build, and maintain software solutions in an agile environment
Write clean, scalable code aligned with best practices and standards
- Act as a technical ambassador for Candescent by presenting at conferences, industry events, customer briefings, and partner sessions.
- Collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, Security, and Client‑facing teams to deliver seamless, compliant integration experiences.
- Partner with customers and external developers to understand real‑world use cases and incorporate feedback into platform improvements.
- Champion best practices in API design, Java‑based services, documentation, and developer workflows.
- Mentor and influence engineers across teams, raising the bar for code quality, design standards, and problem‑solving approaches.
- Ensure platform capabilities align with financial services regulatory and security requirements.
- Contribute to the evolution of Candescent’s developer ecosystem, including portals, onboarding experiences, and marketplace capabilities.
Qualifications and Experience
Required Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
- 12+ years of experience in software engineering, platform development, or developer‑focused products.
- Strong hands‑on experience with Java and modern backend service development.
- Deep experience designing and consuming APIs (REST; familiarity with GraphQL or gRPC is a plus).
- Proven ability to build developer‑friendly platforms, tools, or integration frameworks.
- Experience working directly with customers, partners, or external developers in a technical capacity.
- Demonstrated strength in problem‑solving, system design, and debugging complex distributed systems.
Technical Skills
- Expertise in API design standards and documentation (e.g., OpenAPI, Swagger).
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps tooling, and API lifecycle management.
- Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
- Working knowledge of modern frontend or portal technologies is a plus (e.g., React, Next.js).
- Strong understanding of secure, scalable systems in regulated environments such as FinTech.
Communication and External Engagement
- Comfortable presenting technical concepts to customers, partners, and large audiences.
- Experience speaking at conferences, meetups, webinars, or customer workshops (or strong interest in doing so).
- Ability to translate customer pain points into actionable technical solutions and roadmap input.
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred Distinctions
- Experience in FinTech, SaaS, or enterprise platform environments.
- Prior involvement in developer advocacy, community building, or open‑source initiatives.
- Experience influencing platform strategy beyond your immediate team.
Statement to Third Party Agencies
To ALL recruitment agencies: Candescent only accepts resumes from agencies on the preferred supplier list. Please do not forward resumes to our applicant tracking system, Candescent employees, or any Candescent facility. Candescent is not responsible for any fees or charges associated with unsolicited resumes.
