Principal Software Engineer

About nTop

nTop builds computational design software for engineers designing next-generation aircraft, defense systems, and performance vehicles. Our platform uses fundamentally different approaches to geometry representation and computation, enabling designs traditional CAD systems cannot express. Our team includes world-class specialists in computational geometry, meshing, rendering, and simulation—brilliant innovators who need a generalist who can see across domains and untangle complexity at the system level.

You'll be the "solver" for our most complex technical challenges. This isn't a narrowly-scoped domain expert role or a focus on quarterly deliverables—you'll architect solutions over 1-3 years that compound in value, define our platform direction, and unlock entirely new capabilities.

What makes this unusual: You'll have genuine autonomy to identify the highest-leverage problems across the entire platform. Your "domain" is making the system coherent—from customer interfaces to infrastructure to how we build software. You'll enable deep specialists to build increasingly sophisticated features without the system collapsing under complexity.

Not "fix this bug" problems—but questions like:
How should our platform expose computational power through abstractions and interfaces? Where is complexity creating friction, and how do we eliminate it without sacrificing capability? What infrastructure investments will 10x our iteration speed? These are "define how we think about this for the next several years" problems.

Year 1: Identify and solve 2-3 critical architectural bottlenecks limiting the team today. Drive at least one foundational platform initiative from design through deployment. Establish yourself as the technical escalation point.

Years 2-3: Define architectural direction for major platform capabilities that will serve us for 3+ years. Lead multi-quarter initiatives that fundamentally change how we build or how customers use our platform. Your impact is measured by what others can now accomplish.

This is compound-interest work—early decisions multiply in value over time.

Required:

• 12+ years software engineering with increasing scope and demonstrated impact across multiple teams
• Deep platform/infrastructure expertise: APIs, abstractions, system architecture, performance at scale
• Track record of improving software quality and engineering velocity, not just building features
• Leadership without authority—you build consensus through technical credibility and clarity
• Experience mentoring engineers and elevating team capabilities

Valued:

• High-performance computing, scientific computing, or CAD/CAM systems
• Programming language design or domain-specific languages
• Working with technically sophisticated customers

• You prefer deep specialization over broad platform thinking
• You want clearly defined scope rather than self-directed problem-finding
• You need significant structure and direction to be productive

If these describe you, you might be exceptional, just not right for this role.

Work on genuinely hard computational problems in geometry and high-performance computing with real impact in aerospace and advanced manufacturing. Shape the technical foundation of a platform defining a new category. Collaborate with deep specialists while having autonomy to solve problems your way.

• $220,000-$245,000 annually plus options, benefits, and perks