Principal Developer Experience Engineer - Remote

We are seeking a Principal Developer Experience Engineer with a strong focus on AI enablement to make our engineers more effective, productive, and satisfied. This is a hands-on role: you will build, integrate, and maintain the tools and workflows that developers rely on every day. You’ll also be a thought partner, bringing new ideas for how we can apply AI responsibly and effectively in our software development lifecycle.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about developer productivity, pragmatic about tooling choices, and proactive in shaping a culture of continuous improvement. While a heavy emphasis will be on AI-centric developer tooling and training, this role will also encompass broader developer experience initiatives across the software lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

AI Enablement

• Champion the effective use of AI in the software development lifecycle. Define, document, and evangelize best practices for the use of AI-powered tools, and continuously evaluate and identify new opportunities as the AI landscape evolves
• Work closely with security, legal, and compliance stakeholders to ensure that all tools are safe, appropriate, and deployed responsibly
• Provide hands-on training and workshops, develop content for our on-demand learning management system, curate or recommend external training programs, and pair directly with developers to teach AI development skills

Developer Experience & Productivity

• Implement and manage a strong technical onboarding program for developers, ensuring new hires ramp up quickly and effectively
• Partner closely with leaders in technical program management and product operations to refine and improve the software development lifecycle for effective delivery
• Ensure developer toolchains (such as IDEs, review, and testing tools) are reliable, efficient, and well-supported
• Collaborate with engineering leadership to define and measure productivity and satisfaction metrics, continuously identifying bottlenecks and opportunities

Code Quality

• Own or administer quality management tools such as linters, static analysis tools, and test coverage measurement and reporting
• Document code standards and integrate them into tools as applicable (for example, as context for AI agents and review bots)
• Partner with engineering teams to strengthen code review practices, testing strategies, and continuous integration
• Balance developer autonomy with quality management tooling, ensuring that processes enable, rather than hinder, the delivery of value

Culture & Advocacy

• Serve as an advocate for developer needs across the organization
• Foster a culture of experimentation, learning, and collaboration
• Share knowledge widely: create documentation, run workshops, and mentor teams in best practices

• 7+ years of hands-on software development experience, ideally spanning multiple languages and environments. Our current stack includes Ruby and Go codebases, and direct experience with at least one of these (preferably both) is required. Experience with Python for AI integrations is a significant plus.
• Experience with Cursor is required; it is our primary IDE today
• Demonstrated track record of success implementing AI-driven engineering practices showing measurable benefits
• Excellent communication skills; ability to build consensus and influence across teams, considering multiple perspectives and developing solutions that balance them effectively
• Commitment to data-driven decision making — able to develop and test hypotheses effectively, continually adjusting strategy as a result of new information
• Strong product mindset — able to balance immediate developer pain points with long-term strategic improvements
• Experience leading transformational projects and managing change well, ideally in sensitive, high-complexity environments with significant compliance or regulatory obligations
• CS background preferred; experience in teaching/training is a significant plus

Benefits

• Base salary per year (paid semi-monthly)
• Fast- paced and professional work culture
• Stock options with standard startup vesting - 1 year cliff; 4 years total
• $50 monthly communication expense stipend to go towards your phone/internet bill
• $250 stipend to enhance your WFH setup
• Reimbursement for peripheral equipment: monitor (up to $400), keyboard and mouse (up to $200)
• Premium medical benefits including vision and dental (100% coverage for employees)
• Company-sponsored life and disability insurance
• Paid parental bonding leave
• Paid sick leave, jury duty, bereavement
• 401k plan
• Flexible Time Off (our team members typically take off ~3-4 weeks per year)
• Volunteer Time Off
• 13 scheduled holidays

Salary Range: $200,000-220,000

PayNearMe strives to create a workplace where all employees thrive. Our core values represent who we are today and we take pride in the way we work with each other as well as with our stakeholders.

We’re in this together to do the right thing. We deliver real results we are proud of while remaining respectful, transparent, and flexible.

PayNearMe is an equal opportunity employer. We are diligently and thoughtfully working towards cultivating a diverse workforce which in turn, enhances our products and services for the communities we serve. Applicants who represent all backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.

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PayNearMe develops technology to facilitate the end-to-end customer payment experience, making it easy for businesses to accept, disburse and manage payments. Our modern and reliable platform lowers the total cost of payments by increasing acceptance rates, driving self-service and simplifying exceptions. We future-proof our clients’ payments roadmap by including all payment types and channels through a single contract and integration.

With PayNearMe, businesses can transform the outdated systems holding them back from achieving progress.

PayNearMe has over 200 employees, raised a $45M Series D round in June 2023, and processes billions in payments annually. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, our team is distributed across the U.S. Join us in solving our clients’ biggest payment challenges.