Freelance Distributed Systems Engineer Jobs in Utah

Engineering Manager, Platform & AI Systems

PDCflow is a proven leader in payment management and digital workflow software. Collecting payments, securing e-signatures, and delivering invoices are the lifelines of business operation, but managing them separately can be tedious and time-consuming. Our comprehensive platform combines secure payments and document workflows into one frictionless experience, leveraging decades of compliance expertise to streamline operations for our customers.

We are a small, tight-knit team based out of Ogden, UT that values a human approach to relationships. We provide a stable, casual environment where your voice carries weight, and we take pride in a workspace built on mutual respect and genuine employee appreciation. As we enter an exciting phase of modernizing our platform and expanding into next-generation payment experiences, you will have a direct hand in shaping our future.

The Role

We’re looking for an articulate, people-oriented Platform & AI Systems Engineering Manager to lead a high-velocity team of developers. Our team uses advanced AI-assisted development tools (like Claude Code) to bypass legacy constraints and ship at an elite pace. You will lead the team operationally and technically, keeping them highly engaged while defining a cleaner, modern architecture. Acting as a true primus inter pares—"a first among equals"—you are a peer in the trenches but also a guide at the helm. You are a player coach who stays in the thick of things, codes alongside your peers, and makes the critical decisions needed to lead the team to success.

What You’ll Do

• Drive Velocity & AI Standards: Ensure the team utilizes modern AI tooling effectively, establishing standards and frameworks (like MCP servers) to keep AI-generated code secure, clean, and stable over time.
• Modernize Core APIs: Lead the overhaul of our gateway and API architecture, transitioning systems toward modern, token-based, scoped API access.
• Scale Payment Experiences: Expand secure embedded payment workflows, tokenization, portals, flows, and digital wallet integrations (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, etc.).
• Own Platform & AI Continuity: Take full architectural ownership of our Stripe-shaped OrderService/API platform, maintaining total continuity across repositories, deployments, billing, and vendor integrations.
• Enforce Security & Compliance: Apply sharp operational guardrails around the platform, ensuring robust tenant isolation, tokenization, data redaction, secure API keys, and total auditability (SOC 2, PCI-DSS).
• Mentor & Lead: Foster a collaborative engineering culture grounded in ownership and execution discipline. Partner directly with executive leadership to communicate technical trade-offs, timelines, and risks.
• Build, Prototype, & Improve: Rapidly prototype, test, and deploy production-grade AI solutions while evaluating emerging tools that can optimize engineering operations across the organization.

What We’re Looking For

• Deep Engineering Roots: You bring 10+ years of progressive software engineering experience with a strong background in designing scalable distributed systems, microservices, and resilient backend architectures.
• Strategic Value Generation: You possess a sharp business lens and excel at translating complex payment strategy into executable engineering sequencing. You champion an agile, "test-and-learn" approach—focusing on rapid validation to prove a concept works before scaling it up—while keeping architecture built for long-term scale.
• AI Tooling Fluidity: You have hands-on experience or deep strategic competence using LLMs and advanced prompt frameworks to accelerate engineering output, alongside the ability to convert rapid AI workflows into permanent, documented organizational assets.
• Proven Leadership: You bring 3+ years of direct engineering management, tech lead, or principal team mentorship experience, with a natural ability to coach developers and build trust quickly.
• Fintech Domain Depth: You have a strong background working in high-scale Fintech, Payments, or Billing infrastructure, meaning you thrive in compliance-heavy environments where security, auditability, and data integrity are non-negotiable.
• Wasatch Front Proximity: You live along the Utah corridor between Logan and Provo to easily support our flexible hybrid rhythm.

The Perks

• Comp: Highly competitive base salary plus performance bonus.
• Flexibility: A highly autonomous hybrid cadence (alternating weeks: 2 days in the office one week, 1 day the next).
• Benefits: Premium medical, dental, life, and disability insurance. Generous paid time off, holiday pay, and company celebrations. Competitive 401(k) match.
• Environment & Impact: A casual, emotionally intelligent, and highly stable workspace where your strategic input directly shapes the future of the company. This is a rare opportunity to leave a massive fingerprint on our platform’s next generation, directly moving the needle on company profitability and product capability.