Principal Engineer

About CarePath

CarePath is building the infrastructure that connects veterinary clinics, pet owners, and industry partners through seamless point-of-sale integrations, personalized discounts, and data-driven engagement. Our platform integrates with 26+ Practice Management Information Systems (PIMS) to help thousands of veterinary clinics deliver better client experiences while enabling partners to drive measurable impact across the pet care ecosystem. We are at an exciting stage of growth—scaling a new product line, expanding clinic adoption, and building the technology and operating model to support the next phase of the business. We are looking for builders who enjoy solving complex problems, collaborating across teams, and creating solutions that directly impact veterinary practices and pet owners.

About this role

The Principal Engineer is a senior individual contributor role within the PetDesk CarePath organization, reporting directly to the Chief of Staff / CarePath Partnership Lead. This position provides technical leadership for the CarePath Loyalty product initiative, partnering closely with Engineering, Product, Operations, and business stakeholders — including third-party drug manufacturers, corporate clinic groups, and individual veterinary clinics — to shape the architecture, scalability, and long-term technical strategy of a rapidly growing platform.

The Principal Engineer will lead complex technical initiatives, and drive key architectural decisions, that enable teams to deliver reliable, scalable solutions. Beyond pure technical leadership, this individual will bring demonstrated operational awareness and project management experience — serving as a connective force between engineering execution and real-world business outcomes. They will play a hands-on role in identifying operational efficiencies, contributing to product roadmap discussions, and ensuring that the technical direction of the platform directly supports the goals of our customers and partners.

This role requires balancing strategic thinking with pragmatic execution — helping teams solve complex challenges while maintaining a strong focus on quality, performance, on-time delivery, and long-term maintainability. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable operating at a systems architecture level and rolling up their sleeves to move a critical initiative forward. They bring a builder's mindset, a bias toward action, and the interpersonal skills to work effectively across internal teams and external stakeholders alike.

Apply if you’re excited to:

• Lead the technical vision, architecture, and long-term engineering strategy for the CarePath Loyalty platform, ensuring systems are scalable, secure, resilient, and adaptable as the business grows
• Assist with the design and evolve a platform capable of supporting integrations across dozens of third-party systems — including pharmaceutical manufacturers, and clinic systems — while maintaining reliability, observability, and operational excellence
• Participate to architect data pipelines, APIs, and services that enable seamless data exchange between veterinary clinics, pet owners, drug manufacturers, and industry partners
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Data, and Operations to translate market opportunities and customer needs into scalable technical solutions that directly support product roadmap planning and prioritization
• Drive architectural decisions that balance speed, flexibility, maintainability, and long-term platform health in a rapidly evolving product environment
• Identify and drive operational efficiencies across the platform — working with Operations to streamline processes, reduce manual effort, and improve overall system reliability and throughput
• Oversee the end-to-end technical execution of key initiatives — managing timelines, dependencies, and cross-functional coordination to ensure on-time delivery and high-quality outcomes
• Serve as a technical point of contact for external stakeholders including third-party drug manufacturers, corporate clinic groups, and individual veterinary clinics — translating complex technical concepts into clear, business-relevant communication
• Participate with architecture reviews, conduct hands-on technical guidance sessions, and provide project-level oversight for complex initiatives spanning multiple teams and systems
• Identify and mitigate technical risks associated with third-party integrations, data quality, platform scalability, and system performance before they impact customers or partners
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends related to integrations, data platforms, APIs, and distributed systems to inform the CarePath technical roadmap

About You:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience, with at least 3 years operating at a Staff or Principal Engineer level or equivalent technical leadership capacity
• Deep expertise designing and operating distributed systems, integration platforms, APIs, and data-intensive applications at scale
• Demonstrated experience building and supporting complex third-party integrations, preferably within healthcare, veterinary technology, fintech, SaaS, or similarly interconnected ecosystems
• Strong understanding of system architecture, event-driven design, data modeling, and modern cloud-native application development
• Demonstrated project management experience — ability to plan, track, and drive complex technical initiatives across multiple teams and stakeholders without formal PM authority or certification required
• Proven operational awareness — experience identifying inefficiencies in technical workflows or business processes and working cross-functionally to implement meaningful improvements
• Experience serving as a technical point of contact for external customers, partners, or vendors — including the ability to communicate clearly and build trust with non-technical stakeholders such as clinic operators, corporate group contacts, or pharmaceutical manufacturer partners
• Proven ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and drive alignment without formal authority
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business impact for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience evaluating architectural tradeoffs and making pragmatic decisions that balance short-term business needs with long-term scalability
• Strong proficiency in modern programming languages and cloud platforms, with the ability to contribute hands-on when needed
• Self-directed and highly collaborative with a builder's mindset, strong business acumen, and a genuine passion for solving complex problems that impact real customers

Key skills/competency

• Principal Engineer
• Technical Leadership
• System Architecture
• Distributed Systems
• Integration Platforms
• API Design
• Data Pipelines
• Cloud-Native Development
• Project Management
• Stakeholder Communication