Senior Principal Engineer

About Raising The Village  

Raising The Village’s mission is to build and strengthen pathways out of ultra-poverty through an approach guided by data, designed with communities, and scaled by partnerships. We work with last-mile communities to implement solutions that raise incomes, sustain impact, and chart sustainable pathways to possibility within 24 months. To date, we have supported more than two million people in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with support from our partners and our team in North America. Find out more about our programs and impact at www.raisingthevillage.org.  

About the Venn Platform  

RTV is investing in the next generation of Venn, an integrated platform for program delivery, monitoring, evaluation, and learning.  

What sets Venn apart is its unique ability to unify two critical domains:  

• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): The measurement frameworks, indicators, instruments, and learning loops that drive continuous program improvement.  
• Systems: The applications, data infrastructure, and data science capabilities that power and operationalize those frameworks.  

Getting this platform right has direct consequences for program delivery at scale across multiple countries. 

Position overview 

We are seeking a Principal Engineer who combines deep technical expertise with strong people leadership. The Principal Engineer & Engineering Manager is a senior technical leadership role responsible for ensuring the successful delivery, quality, maintainability, and long-term ownership of RTV's technology platforms.  

This role acts as RTV's technical representative during the design and implementation of strategic technology initiatives, working closely with external vendors, internal stakeholders, and delivery teams to ensure solutions align with RTV's business objectives, architectural standards, and long-term operating model.  

The successful candidate will combine strong software engineering and architecture experience with practical leadership skills, helping RTV establish modern engineering practices, govern AI-assisted software development, and build an engineering capability that can support and evolve platforms after vendor handover.  

Key responsibilities 

Engineering leadership  

• Establish and maintain engineering standards, development practices, and quality frameworks across RTV technology initiatives.  
• Evaluate and oversee the use of modern development practices including AI-assisted software development by vendors and internal teams.  
• Establish standards for code review, testing, documentation, and validation of AI-generated artifacts.  
• Ensure AI-assisted development does not compromise security, maintainability, quality, or architectural consistency.  
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to engineers and technical contributors.  
• Build a culture of quality, accountability, continuous learning, and pragmatic delivery.  
• Support recruitment, onboarding, coaching, and development of engineering talent.  
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to leadership.  
• Vendor oversight & technical governance  
• Act as RTV's primary technical counterpart to implementation vendors.  
• Participate in architecture reviews, solution design sessions, sprint reviews, and technical planning activities.  
• Challenge and validate technical decisions, assumptions, estimates, and implementation approaches.  
• Review solution quality, maintainability, performance, scalability, and security.  
• Assess and manage technical risks throughout delivery.  
• Lead technical handover planning from implementation vendors to RTV  

Team management & mentorship  

• Manage and mentor engineers, supporting their growth, performance, and career development.  
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive, and high-performing engineering culture.  
• Provide technical coaching, conduct regular 1:1s, and guide engineers through complex challenges.  
• Support hiring, onboarding, and team capability building.  
• Execution & Delivery  
• Oversee technical delivery across multiple projects or workstreams.  
• Partner with product and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into technical plans.  
• Ensure predictable execution, clear communication, and timely delivery of engineering work.  
• Identify risks early and guide teams through trade-offs and decision-making.  

Quality & governance  

• Champion strong engineering fundamentals: testing, documentation, code reviews, and reliability.  
• Introduce and maintain processes that improve consistency and reduce operational burden.  
• Ensure systems are built with long-term sustainability and clarity in mind.  
• Promote healthy engineering discipline around change management and release practices.  
• Strategic Contribution  
• Evaluate new tools, technologies, and approaches that improve team efficiency or system quality.  
• Contribute to long-term technical roadmaps and organizational planning.  
• Help shape engineering culture, values, and ways of working. 

Qualifications and Experience 

Technical expertise  

• 8–12+ years of professional software engineering experience.  
• Strong proficiency in modern application development (web, mobile, backend, or full-stack).  
• Experience designing and maintaining complex systems at scale.  
• Strong experience with modular monoliths, metadata-driven systems, offline-first mobile architectures, or multi-tenant SaaS platforms.  
• Deep understanding of software architecture, data modeling, and system design.  
• Strong debugging, problem-solving, and analytical skills.  

Leadership & management  

• 2–5+ years managing engineers or leading technical teams.  
• Proven ability to mentor, coach, and develop engineering talent.  
• Strong communication skills — able to explain technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences.  
• Experience guiding teams through ambiguity and complex technical decisions.  
• Collaboration  
• Comfortable working with product, design, data, and operations teams.  
• Ability to balance technical excellence with practical delivery needs.  
• Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional communication. 

Collaboration 

• Comfortable working with product, design, data, and operations teams. 
• Ability to balance technical excellence with practical delivery needs. 
• Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional communication.

Disclaimer: 

This job description is intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals assigned to this position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. The company reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties as necessary. 

 RTV uses artificial intelligence to screen and assess applicants for this position, including through an applicant tracking system (ATS) that helps sort applications based on job related criteria. Our hiring team reviews all candidates and makes all final decisions. 

Ontario Inclusion and Accessibility Statement: 

RTV is committed to fostering an inclusive, equitable, and accessible workplace. We comply with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). Accommodations are available upon request for candidates participating in all aspects of the employment process.