As a principal engineer at Coinbase, you will be a steward of our architecture, operations, scale, and security. You will help us recruit and develop world-class engineers that represent the best in the industry. You will architect, design, and review platforms that support the company’s vision. You will span technologies from cloud to the blockchain. You will work ruthlessly to make our systems safe, our developers productive, and our deliverables trustworthy. You will look outward as well as inward, aligning our executive team and product strategy with changes in technology, and help us create an innovative culture.

While you need to be strategic in your thinking, this is also very much a “hands-on” job - there are no ivory towers or “architect-only” roles. You should be able to dive deep into code and implement complex systems where necessary. You must be willing to operate without boundaries and be able and willing to fix problems anywhere you find them - in testing and staging, deployment, operations, security, as much as in development and architecture. You must be able to care about a single line of code as much as the company’s vision and strategic investments.

What you’ll be doing:

• Design, develop, deploy, and operate technical architecture and systems. Identify opportunities to improve existing systems/workflows for performance, scale, speed, and accuracy. Ruthlessly optimize for productivity - your own and that of the entire engineering team.
• Champion engineering and operational excellence, establishing metrics and process for regular assessment and improvement. Participate and drive operational reviews and hold both ICs and managers accountable for improvements. Be a relentless advocate for improving the customer experience created by our architecture and code outcomes.
• Review all feature designs within your product area and across the company for cross-cutting projects. Be an owner of the security, safety, scale, operational integrity, and architectural clarity of these designs.
• Understand the trends within the company and in the industry at large. Call out problematic ideas and provide appropriate push-back to engineers, managers, and executives.
• Debugging extremely difficult technical problems, and making systems and products both work better and are easier to deploy, own, operate and diagnose.
• Help with leadership recruiting efforts for hiring senior engineers and managers. Recruit others like yourself and serve as a beacon to the best engineers on the planet through blogs, conference presentations, and other external engagements and/or social media.
• Coach and mentor talented engineers by giving them actionable feedback and setting clear goals. Assist in calibrating and developing the engineering team as a whole.

What we look for in you:

• 10+ years of experience with large scale distributed systems in roles providing technical leadership and direction for software engineering and development
• Strong technical skills for system design and coding
• Comfortable with leading large cross-functional initiatives, and collaborating with product managers, UX designers, and engineering teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and a bias toward open, transparent cultural practices.
• Excellent skills of mentoring, maturity, dealing with conflict and communication - not just within the team but also across the product group and/or all of engineering. 

Nice to haves:

• Have previous experience at a fast paced, high growth stage internet/software company
• Embodies our values: Positive energy, continuous learning, clear communication, efficient execution, and commitment to building an inclusive environment

Coinbase is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Coinbase does not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state or federal law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in a manner consistent with San Francisco’s Fair Chance Ordinance and similar local laws.