Job Description
HappyCo is a company where people can grow their careers and work with like minded people, with no egos or politics. HappyCo is values driven and offers a flexible, supportive culture. Join HappyCo and Make Work Happy!
About HappyCo
HappyCo builds modern property management software that helps owners and operators deliver better living experiences at scale. As we continue to evolve our platform, we are entering a period of significant architectural transformation—modernizing legacy systems while expanding into AI-orchestrated, event-driven workflows that will define the next generation of our product.
The Role
HappyCo is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead architectural design and technical strategy during a pivotal phase of platform evolution. This role will be responsible for creating clarity where complexity exists—assessing current systems, defining target architectures, and enabling teams to move faster through well-documented patterns and simplified software structures.
As HappyCo transitions from AI-augmented capabilities to agentic, AI-orchestrated, and event-driven workflows, this role will provide the architectural oversight and long-range planning required to evolve the platform without disrupting customers. You will be a key driver of technical debt reduction and platform modernization, ensuring that engineering teams—both internal and external—can deliver high-quality work efficiently and consistently.
In your first few months, you will develop a comprehensive view of HappyCo’s existing architecture and translate that understanding into a clear, actionable roadmap for change. Your work will directly improve engineering velocity by replacing fragmented or legacy approaches with shared, documented patterns that teams can confidently follow.
Responsibilities
- Architect and design platform systems and services for enterprise-scale SaaS software, with an emphasis on scalability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
- Assess existing architectural patterns and system designs across the HappyCo software suite, identifying opportunities to reduce technical debt and simplify complexity.
- Define and document target architectures, guiding principles, and standards that enable teams to build faster and more consistently.
- Develop architectural proposals, technical plans, and RFCs, and guide them through internal review and decision-making processes.
- Lead Technical Design Reviews for Staff Engineers and Tech Leads, ensuring alignment with documented patterns and platform direction.
- Drive platform modernization initiatives, including the deprecation of legacy systems in a way that minimizes risk and customer impact.
- Provide hands-on technical leadership by contributing POCs, reference implementations, and other artifacts that accelerate shared understanding and adoption.
- Enable and support external software teams by providing clear documentation, repeatable processes, and timely, decisive architectural guidance.
- Act as a trusted technical advisor to PDE leadership, promoting and evangelizing architectural direction and best practices across the organization.
What We’re Looking For
- Deep experience designing and evolving complex, production-grade SaaS platforms.
- A strong track record of leading architectural change while maintaining system stability.
- Expertise in modern software architectures, including event-driven systems, service orchestration, and platform design.
- Demonstrated ability to reduce technical debt in ways that measurably improve team and organizational velocity.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence across teams and levels of seniority.
- Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces and making high-impact technical decisions.
Why HappyCo
- A rare opportunity to shape the technical foundation of a growing SaaS platform during a major architectural transition.
- High-impact role with visibility and influence across engineering and product leadership.
- Collaborative engineering culture that values clarity, pragmatism, and continuous learning.
- Competitive compensation, benefits, and flexible work arrangements.
About HappyCo
Founded in 2011, HappyCo (happy.co) builds mobile and cloud solutions to enable real-time property data. Our flagship product suite 'Happy Property’ has more than 5 million units on its platform.
We’re everyday people with a shared purpose — improving the lives of others. Our team is made up of thinkers, talkers, planners, makers, builders and everything in between. Together, we’re turning our passions into happier communities!
When customers use our software, their communities get stronger. Our tools empower everyone in multifamily property management to improve their operations and maximize returns, which means they’re building better experiences for their residents. Learn more about our Product Vision here!
Our HappyCo Culture
HappyCo strives to build better communities. So naturally, we are dedicated to making our own community an enjoyable place that allows us do our best work. We’re devoted to building an inclusive, supportive culture that empowers each HappyCo’er to succeed and grow. To learn more about our culture, check out our careers page!
We Offer:
- Work from anywhere supported by a flexible company culture
- Opportunity to work for one of the fastest growing technology companies in the PropTech industry
- Unlimited vacation time
- Generous paid parental leave
- Competitive and equitable pay, including stock options
- Monthly stipends to support Wellness and Home Office expenses
Find out more about our US Employee Benefits here!
We believe in supporting people to do their best work and thrive, and building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive company is core to our mission. Our goal is to ensure that HappyCo upholds an inclusive environment where all people feel that they are equally respected and valued, whether they are applying for an open position or working at the company. We welcome applicants of any educational background, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, age, citizenship, socioeconomic status, disability, and veteran status. HappyCo is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures.
A note to Recruitment Agencies: Please don’t reach out to us about our roles -- we’ve got it covered. We don’t accept unsolicited agency resumes and HappyCo is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
Interested in this role?
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