Principal Backend Engineer - Core

What are we building? Hard Rock Digital is focused on becoming the best online sportsbook, casino, and social gaming company in the world. We’re building a place that resonates passion for learning, operating and building new products and technologies for millions of consumers. We care about each customer's interaction, experience, behavior, and insight and strive to ensure we’re always acting authentically. Rooted in the kindred spirits of Hard Rock and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the new Hard Rock Digital taps a brand known the world over as the leader in gaming, entertainment, and hospitality. We’re taking that foundation of success and bringing it to the digital space — ready to join us? What’s the position? A Principal Backend Engineer at Hard Rock Digital is a hands-on engineering leadership (IC) position. As a Principal Backend Engineer you will: Be a technical point of contact for various stakeholders. Be hands-on in both coding and architecture, leading from the front. Partner closely with Engineering and Product leadership to shape roadmaps and make high-quality trade-offs that maximise business and customer impact. Mobilise the team around high-impact problems, creating clarity, alignment and momentum, injecting urgency when needed, or slowing things down to ensure safety and long-term sustainability. Lead and influence architectural direction for the most complex systems, ensuring cohesive and scalable designs Set and uphold a high bar for technical excellence across the team, driving improvements in quality, readability and scalability, and fostering a culture where engineers hold each other to that standard. Proactively mentor, sponsor and develop senior engineers, multiplying your impact by enabling others to operate at a higher level. Leading and influencing engineers in the team without direct authority – through code, design reviews and technical mentorship Spotting and resolving cross-team technical dependencies before they become blockers Champion the adoption of AI-assisted development practices and tools across the team, helping raise the bar on engineering velocity and code qual