Principal Software Engineer - AI Innovation Studio | Priority Commerce

Who Is Priority & How Are They Changing the World

Priority is a financial technology company focused on helping businesses move money more efficiently. Through the Priority Commerce Engine, Priority brings together payables, merchant acquiring, banking, and treasury solutions into a unified commerce platform that helps businesses accelerate cash flow, reduce friction, and unlock new revenue opportunities. 

Priority operates across a broad financial ecosystem, supporting small business owners, mid-market operators, and enterprise customers, with products that power how businesses accept payments, manage working capital, and run their financial operations. 

The vision: To engineer the world’s most resilient, AI-native financial ecosystem that empowers businesses to transcend table-stakes and lead the agentic future — where every financial transaction is intelligent, every developer is accelerated, and every experience is unified.

Priority is investing heavily in AI-driven innovation to transform how customers interact with financial technology and how internal teams build, operate, and scale software. The Innovation Studio is a strategic engineering and product hub focused on the future of commerce, payments, and agentic product development. Priority is investing in Waterloo as an engineering centre with company-wide impact.

How Will I Make An Impact?

As Principal Software Engineer, Innovation Studio, you will define the long-term technical vision for how AI is leveraged across Priority's products, platforms, and operations.

You will:

• Establish architectural patterns for building scalable, production-grade AI systems
• Define technical strategy across customer-facing AI experiences, fraud and risk initiatives, and internal operational tooling
• Drive adoption of modern AI-native engineering practices across multiple teams
• Partner with Engineering, Product, and Executive Leadership to identify and execute high-impact opportunities
• Influence architecture and engineering standards across the broader organization
• Guide teams through complex technical decisions involving distributed systems, cloud platforms, and AI technologies
• Mentor Staff, Senior Staff, and emerging technical leaders
• Ensure solutions are secure, scalable, reliable, and aligned with long-term business objectives

How Do I Know If This Is For Me?

You may be a fit if:

• You enjoy solving ambiguous, large-scale technical problems
• You love shaping technical direction more than owning individual features
• You are excited about the intersection of AI and financial technology
• You thrive influencing teams without direct authority
• You enjoy mentoring senior engineers and helping organizations scale technically
• You are energized by building systems that impact millions of transactions and customers

Our Ideal Candidate Looks Like:

• 15+ years of software engineering experience
• Significant experience operating at Staff, Senior Staff, Principal, or Architect level
• Deep expertise designing and operating distributed cloud-native systems
• Strong background in platform architecture and technical strategy
• Experience integrating AI capabilities into production systems
• Experience with modern AI platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, or similar technologies
• Strong understanding of APIs, service-oriented architecture, observability, and reliability engineering
• Proven ability to influence technical direction across multiple teams and domains
• Fintech, payments, risk, fraud, or other regulated-industry experience is considered an asset

Technology Environment

Primary Technologies

• Python
• AWS
• Kubernetes

Secondary / Adjacent Technologies

• Node.js
• NestJS
• OpenAI
• Anthropic
• Gemini
• LangGraph
• LangSmith
• Langfuse
• Modern CI/CD platforms
• Observability and monitoring tooling

Location: This role is onsite 4 days per week in Kitchener-Waterloo (Catalyst Commons)

‍Vacancy: This role is a newly created position

‍Compensation: The compensation for this role is expected to exceed $200,000

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The Process

1. Initial screen with Artemis Canada

2. Interview with Hiring Manager, Taylor Teal

3. Technical systems design (live + virtual)

4. AI architectural design (live+ virtual)

5. Meet the team conversation (virutal)

6. References and offer