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Principal Software Developer Jobs in Connecticut

Position Overview We are seeking a Principal Drupal Engineer to play a central role in planning ... Required Skills and Experience * 8+ years of professional software engineering experience ...

New

As a Principal Systems Engineer you will work in a team-based environment to develop Electro ... Creating and maintaining FPGA and software interface control documentation * Troubleshooting and ...

Principal R&D Engineer

North Haven, CT · On-site

$150K - $195K/yr

Principal R&D Engineer for Covidien, LP (a Medtronic company) .Responsible for supporting the ... Finite Element Analysis with ANSYS and Dynamic Mechanism models creation with Creo Software; and 1D ...

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Principal Software Developer information

See Connecticut salary details

$89.9K

$134.3K

$176.5K

How much do principal software developer jobs pay per year?

As of Jun 12, 2026, the average yearly pay for principal software developer in Connecticut is $134,294.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $117,500.00 and $147,400.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What is the difference between Principal Software Developer vs Senior Software Engineer?

AspectPrincipal Software DeveloperSenior Software Engineer
CredentialsBachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science; extensive experienceBachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science; 5+ years experience
Work EnvironmentLeads technical strategy, mentors teams, influences architectureDevelops features, writes code, mentors junior staff
Industry UsageUsed in large organizations, tech companies, and enterprise settingsCommon across startups, mid-sized, and large companies

The Principal Software Developer typically holds a higher-level role focused on technical leadership, architecture, and strategic planning, whereas the Senior Software Engineer primarily focuses on coding, feature development, and mentoring. Both roles require strong technical skills, but the Principal position involves broader responsibilities and influence within the organization.

How does a Principal Software Developer typically balance hands-on coding with leadership and mentorship responsibilities?

As a Principal Software Developer, you’ll often split your time between writing high-impact code and guiding technical direction for the team. While you remain involved in architecting and developing complex features, a significant portion of your role will also involve mentoring less-experienced developers, leading code reviews, and fostering best practices. You’ll collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to align technical solutions with business goals, and you’re expected to influence the overall engineering culture. This balance requires strong time management skills and a passion for both technical excellence and team development.

What does a Principal Software Developer do?

A Principal Software Developer is a senior-level engineer responsible for leading complex software projects, setting technical direction, and mentoring other developers. They design and architect software solutions, ensure best coding practices, and collaborate with stakeholders to align technical strategy with business goals. Principal Software Developers often influence company-wide technology decisions and help solve the most challenging engineering problems. Their role typically combines hands-on coding with leadership and strategic planning.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Principal Software Developer, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Principal Software Developer, you need advanced expertise in software engineering, architecture design, and problem-solving, typically backed by a degree in computer science or a related field and extensive industry experience. Mastery of programming languages (such as Java, Python, or C#), software development frameworks, cloud platforms, and familiarity with tools like Git, Docker, and CI/CD systems is critical. Leadership, effective communication, and mentorship abilities are vital soft skills that set top performers apart in this role. These competencies ensure scalable solutions, effective project delivery, and the growth of high-performing development teams.
Infographic showing various Principal Software Developer job openings in Connecticut as of June 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% Internship, 67% Full Time, 25% Part Time, 2% Temporary, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 93% Physical, 3% Hybrid, and 4% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $134,294 per year, or $64.6 per hour.

Principal Drupal Engineer

4AP HOLDINGS INC

Old Saybrook, CT • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Retirement, PTO

Posted yesterday


Job description

Description:About 4AllPromos

4AllPromos is a leading provider of customized promotional products, serving businesses, organizations, and individuals nationwide. Our extensive selection of high-quality items, commitment to exceptional customer service, and focus on value help our clients promote their brands, events, and organizations effectively.

We are a practical, fast-moving company that values creativity, sound technical judgment, data-informed decisions, and systems that make the business better.

Position Overview

We are seeking a Principal Drupal Engineer to play a central role in planning, building, and improving the Drupal-based platform that will power the next generation of our e-commerce business. This role will be deeply involved in shaping the technical backlog, driving a consistent code review process, guiding important architecture decisions, and helping turn business goals into durable, well-built software.

You will work closely with engineering, marketing, merchandising, sales, and operations to design and deliver systems that support our core business as we migrate from our legacy platform toward a modern Drupal-based architecture. You will also help bring modern development practices into our workflow, including thoughtful use of AI-assisted and agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and similar tools.

This role is well suited for an engineer with deep Drupal experience who enjoys hard architectural problems, e-commerce at scale, strong code quality, practical delivery, and helping a capable team build better software.

This is a senior individual-contributor role with significant technical leadership responsibility; it does not include direct people manage

Requirements:Responsibilities
  • Work closely with the CTO, engineering team, and business stakeholders to shape, refine, and prioritize the technical backlog.
  • Translate business goals into clear, well-scoped engineering work in partnership with marketing, merchandising, sales, operations, and other stakeholders.
  • Drive a thorough and consistent code review process that improves quality, maintainability, security, and shared engineering standards.
  • Help shape the architecture and technical direction of our Drupal-based e-commerce platform, including build, buy, and design decisions.
  • Design, develop, and maintain custom Drupal modules, integrations, services, and platform features that support core business operations.
  • Support the migration from our legacy e-commerce platform to a modern Drupal-based platform architecture.
  • Improve engineering delivery practices across CI/CD, automated testing, deployment safety, observability, logging, monitoring, and incident response.
  • Optimize platform performance, scalability, and reliability across application code, database queries, caching, CDN behavior, search, and high-traffic workflows.
  • Support and improve critical e-commerce capabilities, including product discovery, checkout-adjacent workflows, payment-adjacent workflows, third-party integrations, and operational systems.
  • Apply secure development practices across authentication, authorization, data handling, payment-adjacent workflows, dependency management, and OWASP-style application risks.
  • Bring practical AI-assisted development workflows into day-to-day engineering, using tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools while preserving code quality, security, and ownership.
  • Provide technical mentorship and share expertise through code review, design discussions, documentation, pairing, and implementation guidance.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues across the full stack in a timely and durable way.
  • Stay current with Drupal, PHP, e-commerce architecture, AI-assisted development tools, and modern engineering practices, bringing useful improvements back into the team.
  • Participate in on-call rotations and occasional off-hours deployments for critical systems.
Required Skills and Experience
  • 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial hands-on Drupal/PHP development.
  • Deep expertise with Drupal 8 through 11, including site architecture, configuration, advanced custom module development, and platform maintenance.
  • Deep experience with modern Drupal engineering practices, including Composer, Drush, configuration management, custom modules, services, plugins, events, caching, and performance tuning.
  • Expert PHP skills, including object-oriented design, Symfony components, dependency injection, Composer, and modern PHP practices.
  • Proven ability to architect, scale, and maintain large web or e-commerce platforms.
  • Strong SQL skills, preferably with MariaDB/MySQL, including schema design, query optimization, indexing, and performance troubleshooting.
  • Experience with Git-based collaborative development, branching strategies, code review, automated testing, and CI/CD workflows.
  • Familiarity with AWS or comparable cloud platforms used to operate scalable production systems.
  • Strong understanding of web security principles, including authentication, authorization, data handling, dependency management, and common OWASP application risks.
  • Experience improving performance across both front-end and back-end systems.
  • Familiarity with observability practices, including logging, monitoring, alerting, and production troubleshooting.
  • Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar tools; able to apply them thoughtfully while maintaining code quality, security, and ownership.
  • Strong front-end proficiency with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to engineers and business stakeholders.
  • Comfortable working across business and technical contexts, turning ambiguity into clear implementation paths.
  • Authorized to work in the United States.
Preferred Experience
  • Headless or decoupled Drupal experience using JSON:API, GraphQL, React, Vue, Next.js, or similar front-end architectures.
  • Experience with advanced caching strategies, CDN behavior, search infrastructure, and high-traffic e-commerce performance tuning.
  • Experience with payment, tax, shipping, ERP, PIM, CRM, marketplace, or other e-commerce and operations integrations.
  • Experience migrating legacy e-commerce platforms to modern architectures.
  • Experience orchestrating autonomous coding agents, using cloud-based coding agents, or building MCP integrations.
  • Experience integrating LLMs into production software or internal engineering workflows.
  • Active participation in the Drupal community, including contrib modules, issue queues, DrupalCon, or related community work.
  • Experience with accessibility standards and best practices for inclusive web experiences.
  • Experience with agile development practices and project management tools.

You do not need to check every box. Strong candidates come from a range of backgrounds. If you have a compelling combination of Drupal expertise, architectural judgment, business-minded engineering, and practical delivery experience, we would like to hear from you.

Benefits
  • Competitive salary commensurate with experience, location, and qualifications.
  • Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance plans.
  • 401(k) retirement savings plan with employer match.
  • Flexible/unlimited PTO, paid company holidays, and a culture that encourages people to actually use time off.
  • Professional development opportunities and training programs.
  • Collaborative, practical, and innovative work environment.
  • Remote and hybrid work options available for eligible locations.
Why Join 4AllPromos?

At 4AllPromos, we believe good software should make the business stronger, the customer experience better, and the team more effective. We value thoughtful engineering, practical problem-solving, clear communication, and continuous improvement.This is an opportunity to work on a real e-commerce business with meaningful impact, help migrate and modernize important systems, improve engineering practices, and contribute to how we build software for the next stage of growth.