Principal Software Engineer at Thanks

Sydney, New South Wales, Australia -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

14 Apr, 26

Salary

0.0

Posted On

14 Jan, 26

Experience

5 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

TypeScript, Node.js, React, System Design, Technical Leadership, Communication, Problem Solving, Mentoring, Observability, Reliability, Operational Practices, Cloudflare, Data Systems, Analytics, ML, Production Code

Industry

Marketing Services

Description

Build the technical foundation of a future unicorn. Thanks is building the only monetisation platform where advertisers, publishers, and consumers all win. We’ve found strong product-market fit, are product-led, and will soon wrap up our Series A. Now we’re looking for a Principal Engineer to help define the next chapter of our product engineering organisation - technically, culturally, and strategically. This is a foundational technical leadership role. You’ll be the most senior engineer in the business, partnering closely with our Head of Product and founders to bring an ambitious vision and roadmap to life, setting the technical bar, and helping us scale both our platform and our team - while remaining meaningfully hands-on. Why this role exists Thanks has reached an inflection point. We have a strong core product in market, new products in active development, and ambitious plans to scale globally. What we now need is exceptional technical leadership - someone who has seen what “great” looks like in start-up and scale-up environments, and can help us build towards it deliberately. This hire will: take ownership of our technical direction, uplift a capable but evolving senior engineering team, increase velocity without sacrificing long-term quality, and help us build the foundations of a world-class engineering organisation. If we get this hire right, everything accelerates. The role As Principal Engineer, you will operate as the de facto Head of Engineering from a technical perspective, without the bureaucracy. This is not a people management role - however, there is a clear pathway to formal leadership if that’s something you want over time. You’ll work as a true peer to our Head of Product, challenging trade-offs, shaping strategy, and ensuring that technical decisions support both near-term execution and long-term ambition. You will still write production code - not as your only job, but because the best technical leaders stay close to the work. What you’ll do Set technical direction: Own architecture and system design decisions across the platform, with a focus on speed-to-learning. You will exercise the judgment to move fast on “Two-Way Door” decisions - prioritising modularity and refactorability - while applying deep architectural rigour and planning to the rare “One-Way Door” decisions that underpin our long-term scalability. Lead complex, ambiguous initiatives: Break down hard problems, design solutions, and take them from idea to production in a fast-moving environment. Raise the technical bar: Set contextual quality standards, system design, testing, performance, and developer experience - and lead by example. Be hands-on where it matters most: Design and ship meaningful production code, particularly in high-leverage or high-risk areas of the system. Partner deeply with Product and founders: Shape roadmaps, challenge assumptions, and help the business make smart technical trade-offs as we scale. Develop engineers and culture: Mentor senior engineers, influence technical standards, and help build a high-trust, high-performance engineering culture. Prepare us for scale: Improve observability, reliability, and operational practices as our traffic, revenue, and team grow. What we’re looking for We’re intentionally setting a high bar. You don’t need to tick every box, but you should recognise yourself in most of this: Experience building and scaling production systems at significant scale, ideally in product-led, start-up or scale-up environments. Deep expertise across TypeScript / Node.js / React, and strong system design fundamentals. Proven ability to make good decisions under ambiguity and time pressures, balancing speed with long-term impact. A track record of technical leadership through influence, not hierarchy. Strong communication skills - able to explain complex ideas clearly and challenge constructively. A genuine ownership mindset: you see problems, take responsibility, and drive them through to outcomes. Humility and pragmatism - you care about building great systems and great teams. This role is well-suited to senior Staff Engineers who are operating at, or ready to step into, Principal-level scope and impact. Nice to have (but not required) Experience in adtech, martech, marketplaces, or other complex platform businesses. Exposure to large-scale data systems, analytics, or ML-adjacent problem spaces. Familiarity with Cloudflare’s ecosystem (Workers, Queues, KV). Experience operating systems with high traffic, global users, or regulatory constraints. Our stack Backend: Node.js, TypeScript, Turborepo Frontend: React, Next.js, React Native Data: Prisma, PlanetScale, ClickHouse (and other OLAP systems) Infrastructure: Cloudflare (Workers, Queues, KV) Testing & CI: Vitest, Playwright, GitHub Actions Observability: Datadog, Sentry, OpenTelemetry Experimentation: Statsig Why Thanks? At Thanks, we’re building an advertising platform that consumers genuinely appreciate - one that rewards attention rather than exhausting it. We’ve found strong product-market fit, are becoming increasingly product-led, and are entering our next phase of growth with serious ambition. This is a rare opportunity to join at a genuine inflection point - when foundations matter most, and individual impact is highest. Here’s what makes Thanks different: Foundational impact: You won’t be joining a mature system to optimise at the margins. You’ll help define the technical foundations, standards, and direction that the company builds on for years to come. Real ownership and trust: We hire experienced people and give them real authority. You’ll have the autonomy to make meaningful technical decisions, challenge assumptions, and help shape what “great” looks like at Thanks. Attractive compensation: Including meaningful equity. Growth, without chaos: You’ll work closely with our founders and Head of Product in a culture that values courage over comfort, high standards without ego, and kindness without complacency. Flexibility with intent: We’re Sydney-headquartered and value in-person collaboration, ideally a couple of days per week. That said, we care more about leadership, impact, and outcomes than rigid rules - and we’re open to exceptional candidates across Australia’s east coast. #LI-Hybrid We’re not trying to copy what already exists. We’re building our own ecosystem - deliberately, thoughtfully, and at scale. If you’re excited by hard problems, real responsibility, and the chance to help build something enduring, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s build something extraordinary.

Responsibilities

As Principal Engineer, you will set the technical direction and own architecture decisions while being hands-on in writing production code. You will lead complex initiatives and mentor senior engineers to build a high-performance engineering culture.