Himalayas logo
Optimal DynamicsOD

Principal Software Engineer, Backend

Optimal Dynamics is revolutionizing the transportation industry with cutting-edge decision automation.

Optimal Dynamics

Employee count: 51-200

Salary: 200k-240k USD

United States only

About Our Company

Built on over four decades of pioneering research at Princeton University, our platform represents the leading edge of innovation in freight and transportation planning. We help customers unlock double-digit revenue gains and drive smarter, data-driven operations at scale.
With the recent close of our Series C funding round led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, we’re entering an exciting new phase of growth. Today, Optimal Dynamics is a high-growth company of ~70 employees, backed by top-tier investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, The Westly Group, Activate Capital, and Koch.

We're on a mission to redefine the way logistics decisions are made—and we’re just getting started.

About Our Team

We are a team of bright, kind, and solution-oriented people focused on creating value for our customers. We can solve problems individually, but understand that the best solutions are found when the team brainstorms ideas together. We are excited about balancing the need to deploy new solutions quickly and designing solutions that are secured, reliable, maintainable, and scalable for the long run.

About the Role

Optimal Dynamics is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Backend, within our Platform Systems team who will lead the architecture and strategy of our platform infrastructure. The role spans internal tool Development, Infrastructure, and Security, ensuring that our engineering team can build, deploy, operate systems with speed, safety, confidence.

As an individual contributor technical leader, you’ll define best practices, guide cross-functional initiatives, design systems that scale with our rapidly growing platform. You’ll partner closely across engineering product teams, balancing reliability velocity while mentoring others raising the overall technical bar.

This is a full-time, remote-friendly role open to candidates across the U.S., with the option to work from our New York City headquarters. Ready to make an impact? Join us and help redefine the logistics industry!

What You’ll Do

  • Platform Architecture Evolution: Design, implement, and scale core infrastructure to ensure reliability, performance, and security.
  • Developer Experience (DevEx): Build and improve tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and workflows, optimizing developer productivity and minimizing friction.
  • Security Compliance: Champion security-by-design principles, implementing controls that safeguard systems and data without slowing innovation.
  • Mentorship Influence: Serve as a technical leader across teams, coaching engineers, and driving alignment on platform strategy.
  • Collaboration: Partner with product and engineering leaders, balancing speed, cost, and resilience in every decision.

Who You Are

  • Educated: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, or equivalent technical experience.
  • Experienced:
    • Principal-level expertise in Infrastructure Platform Engineering
    • Proven track record of scaling cloud-native systems
    • Strong Python 3 expertise
    • Strong AWS expertise
    • Familiarity with event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar).
    • Hands-on experience with IaC tools (i.e. Terraform, CloudFormation), observability, monitoring, incident response.
  • Optimization-Driven:
    • Proven track record of improving DevEx by leveling up tooling, pipelines, automation.
    • Experience improving monorepo developer workflows (Bazel, Buck, Pants).
  • Security-Focused:
    • Knowledge of compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.) and how to operationalize them.
    • Experience leading security initiatives(i.e. hardening environments; building secure-by-default workflows)
  • Leader: A history of mentoring engineers and shaping technical direction across teams.

Nice to have (Bonus Points)

  • Experience with service mesh/container orchestration (Kubernetes, Istio, etc.).
  • Background in transportation systems (TMS, ELD) or other complex, mission-critical domains.
  • Experience implementing cost monitoring, forecasting, and optimization strategies to ensure infrastructure efficiency and cloud spend accountability

About our tech stack and development practices

At Optimal Dynamics, our entire infrastructure runs on Amazon AWS, leveraging a wide range of services including DynamoDB, Aurora, SSM, and SQS to power our intelligent logistics platform.

Our tech stack includes:

  • Backend AI: Python 3 and Java
  • Frontend: JavaScript/TypeScript for our web-based SPA
  • Data Stack: Trino, Dagster, dbt, DuckDB, and Preset

We follow modern development best practices with all code stored on GitHub. Every pull request undergoes thorough code reviews, is fully unit tested, and deployed through our CI/CD pipeline for continuous quality assurance.

Pay Range
$200,000$240,000 USD

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation, including Series C level equity
  • Health / Dental / Vision 100% covered for employee and 50% for dependents
  • Life Insurance, with optional supplemental insurance
  • Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
  • Health Spending Account (HSA)
  • 401(k) with match
  • Unlimited PTO (vacation, personal days, sick days, jury duty, military leave, bereavement)
  • 11 Holidays
  • Paid Parental Leave for all employees
  • Short-term and Long-term Disability Insurances, and ADD Insurance
  • Fitness membership reimbursement
  • Commuter benefits

Optimal Dynamics is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace with equal opportunity for all applicants and employees. Our goal is to recruit the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool regardless of race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex (including pregnancy), age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.Optimal Dynamics is committed to working with and providing access and reasonable accommodation to applicants. If you require an accommodation, please reach out to careers@optimaldynamics.com once you've begun the interview process. All requests for accommodations are treated discreetly and confidentially, as practical and permitted by law.

About the job

Apply before

Posted on

Job type

Full Time

Experience level

Senior

Salary

Salary: 200k-240k USD

Location requirements

Hiring timezones

United States +/- 0 hours

About Optimal Dynamics

Learn more about Optimal Dynamics and their company culture.

View company profile

Optimal Dynamics is revolutionizing the transportation industry with cutting-edge decision automation. Born from 40 years of pioneering research at Princeton University, we leverage our proprietary Artificial Decision Intelligence engine to automate and optimize critical decisions for truckload operators. Since our founding in 2017, and the launch of our go-to-market efforts in 2020, we’ve achieved triple-digit average annual growth, rapidly expanding our footprint among the nation's enterprise carriers. This growth is fueled by increasing demand for dispatch automation services, the success of satisfied customers, and a shared belief that better decisions build better businesses.

Known as The Decision Company, we are redefining how fleets approach decision-making by simplifying and automating complex planning processes. Our platform is designed to empower teams to focus on high-impact work, driving efficiency and scalability across operations. By harnessing the power of industrial AI, we are building the first large-scale use cases for network optimization, transforming how automation shapes the future of logistics. Backed by top-tier investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, The Westly Group, and Activate Capital - we’ve raised $55M to date. Our continued momentum cements Optimal Dynamics as the driving force behind smarter decision-making in logistics.

Claim this profileOptimal Dynamics logoOD

Optimal Dynamics

View company profile

Similar remote jobs

Here are other jobs you might want to apply for.

View all remote jobs

7 remote jobs at Optimal Dynamics

Explore the variety of open remote roles at Optimal Dynamics, offering flexible work options across multiple disciplines and skill levels.

View all jobs at Optimal Dynamics

Remote companies like Optimal Dynamics

Find your next opportunity by exploring profiles of companies that are similar to Optimal Dynamics. Compare culture, benefits, and job openings on Himalayas.

View all companies

Find your dream job

Sign up now and join over 100,000 remote workers who receive personalized job alerts, curated job matches, and more for free!

Sign up
Himalayas profile for an example user named Frankie Sullivan
Optimal Dynamics hiring Principal Software Engineer, Backend • Remote (Work from Home) | Himalayas