Principal Staff Software Engineer (Bogota, DC)

Staff / Principal Engineer — AI-Native Engineering

Bogotá, Colombia / Monterrey, Mexico

Location: Bogotá, Colombia / Monterrey, Mexico (Hybrid, to be confirmed)

Compensation: USD $90K–$140K/year

Employment: Full-time, Mid-Senior Level

About the Company

Our client is a world-leading global insurance group moving its entire technology organisation to an AI-native engineering model across the full product lifecycle, from idea through design, build, test, deploy and operate.

Its best teams already perform on par with the strongest engineering teams anywhere. The challenge now is scaling that way of working across the whole organisation. With its restructuring complete and the company in a rebuilding phase, it offers enterprise scale with global reach, hard modernisation and integration problems, and the chance to make AI-native engineering the real operating model rather than a pilot.

About the Role

We’re looking for a Staff / Principal Engineer to act as a hands-on technical leader embedded in real delivery teams working on legacy modernisation, systems integration and data-intensive products.

This role is part of a global group of Staff and Principal Engineers across the client’s hubs, all held to the same bar. You will have visible ownership of a real domain rather than a narrow slice of a large organisation. At Principal level, you may own the technical direction for a major business domain.

We value scope and evidence over employer brand: engineers from banks, insurers, telcos, super-apps, fintech or startups are all a fit if they have worked on systems of real scale and complexity.

What You’ll Do

• Work hands-on within delivery teams, writing code every week alongside the engineers you lead.
• Take ideas end-to-end to production, connecting architecture decisions to customer journeys and business outcomes.
• Drive the adoption of AI-native engineering practices, including agentic coding tools, context and harness engineering, and AI-assisted reverse engineering and testing.
• Lead architecture for large, business-critical systems, including legacy modernisation and complex integration across many teams.
• Make the engineers around you better through coaching, pairing and technical leadership.
• Communicate technical direction credibly to both delivery engineers and C-level stakeholders.
• At Principal level, own the technical direction for a major business domain.

Must Have

• Current or recent experience as a Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, or equivalent senior technical leadership role.
• Enterprise-scale architecture experience: large, business-critical systems, legacy estates and integration across many teams.
• Hands-on coding as part of your current work.
• Applied AI-native engineering experience, with concrete evidence that it improved delivery.
• A track record of taking products from idea to production.
• Based in Bogotá or Monterrey.

Nice to Have

• Experience in insurance, fintech or banking.
• Experience working in regulated environments.
• Consumer-scale product engineering (super-apps, e-commerce, delivery or mass-consumer products).
• Large-scale legacy modernisation or complex systems integration.
• Experience building and owning products in-house, beyond research-only or consulting-only roles.

Soft Skills

• Product mindset and strong focus on business outcomes.
• A multiplier attitude: you raise the level of the engineers around you.
• Clear, trusted communication with technical and executive audiences.
• Ownership and initiative in shaping technical direction.
• Comfort navigating complex, regulated, multi-team environments.

Interview Process

Recruiter Screen: 30-minute introductory conversation.

Client Interviews: 3 to 5 rounds with senior technology leaders across regions.