Principal Full Stack Engineer (AI-Native) Canada | Founding Engineering Team The Opportunity:

We’re partnering with a publicly listed global technology company operating at a massive international scale across digital commerce. Despite its size, the organization runs with a startup execution model - lean teams, strong ownership, and engineering-led decision making. The company is now establishing a new Toronto engineering hub, starting with a small group of highly senior engineers tasked with designing and operating modern, AI-native systems that directly power a global customer platform used across 50+ countries.

This is a founding-team opportunity - not incremental hiring. At the Principal level, this role will help define system architecture, technical standards, and engineering practices that shape the long-term foundation of the Toronto development center.

What Makes This Role Different:

This team is intentionally structured around AI-augmented software development. AI tooling is not experimental or optional - it is embedded into daily workflows to dramatically increase engineering velocity, ownership, and output quality.

You’ll work in an environment where engineers:

Own problems end-to-end

Lead technical direction through hands-on contribution

Operate production systems directly

Use AI as a true productivity multiplier

What You’ll Be Building

You’ll architect and deliver full-stack platforms powering a globally scaled commerce ecosystem, including:

Up-to-date frontend applications and platform experiences

Scalable backend services and APIs

Cloud-native infrastructure and distributed systems

Performance, reliability, and observability platforms

AI-enabled engineering workflows and development standards Principal Engineers are expected to drive initiatives from architecture → execution → long-term operational ownership while enabling team-wide engineering effectiveness.

Core Responsibilities





Architect and evolve scalable full-stack systems across frontend, backend, and cloud layers

Lead high-impact technical initiatives from concept through production deployment

Define and promote AI-assisted development standards and workflows

Mentor engineers on system design, scalability, and architectural decision making

Guide technical direction across services, applications, and platform components

Improve system reliability, performance, and security at scale

Partner closely with product, infrastructure, and platform leadership

Lead root-cause analysis and resolution of complex production challenges

Establish best practices for testing, observability, and deployment

Continuously improve engineering productivity within a small, senior team Ideal Background:

We’re looking for senior technical leaders who combine deep hands-on engineering expertise with strong architectural ownership.

You likely bring

~10+ years building production software systems

Proven experience designing and delivering large-scale web platforms

Expert JavaScript / TypeScript proficiency

Strong backend experience across modern service architectures

Deep understanding of APIs, distributed systems, and frontend architecture

Extensive cloud-native development experience (AWS preferred)

Experience working with data storage, caching, and messaging systems

Track record of leading technical direction through hands-on execution

Comfort operating in small, high-ownership engineering teams

Most importantly: Demonstrated ability to leverage AI tooling effectively to accelerate engineering velocity and improve system quality.

Why Engineers Are Interested

Founding technical leader within a current Toronto engineering center

High autonomy and meaningful architectural ownership

Small, senior-only team environment

Opportunity to shape AI-native engineering culture from day one

Global scale technical challenges without large-company bureaucracy

Competitive compensation and long-term growth opportunity

📌 Principal SW Engineer - AI Native (Toronto)
🏢 HRB
📍 Toronto