Tech Lead /Sr. Principal Engineer (L6)
Twilio · Posted Oct 13
Cloud-based customer engagement platform providing APIs for messaging, voice, email, and customer data orchestration
Get a personal compatibility score
Add a resume for personal matches
About the role
Twilio Forward is Twilio's incubation lab, and the Emerging Tech team pioneers Horizon-3 initiatives spanning agent-native communication channels and the Agent-to-Human (A2H) protocol. The team works on rapid prototyping and frontier technologies including AI and machine learning. This Tech Lead / Sr. Principal Engineer role contributes hands-on technical expertise, architecting and delivering production-ready solutions and driving AI R&D with cross-functional partners.
What you will do
- Architect & Deliver: Design, develop, and own the end-to-end implementation of high-stakes prototypes and robust, production-ready solutions.
- Spearhead AI R&D: Drive the technical direction and collaborate with cross-functional teams to experiment with, validate, and integrate AI, machine learning, and frontier technologies.
- Champion Engineering Excellence: Establish governance for code reviews and pioneer continuous improvements to engineering standards, mentoring peers to elevate overall code quality.
- Influence & Evangelize: Articulate complex technical concepts, architectural decisions, and project velocity clearly to executive stakeholders and engineering peers alike.
- Drive Agility: Navigate ambiguity and rapidly pivot technical strategies in response to shifting requirements, user feedback, and fast-paced market dynamics.
Skills used in this role
What the employer is looking for
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- 12+ years of professional software development experience.
- Proficiency across modern programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, Java or Go with the ability to select the right tool for the job.
- Experience building applications using front-end (React, Angular) and/or back-end (Node.js, Springboot) frameworks.
- Data Architecture: Solid understanding of database technologies, including both SQL and NoSQL paradigms and when to select them.
- Next-Gen Workflow: Mastery of an agentic coding operating model; highly effective at leveraging advanced dev tools, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and LLMs to drastically accelerate AI-assisted development.
- Strong problem-solving skills and a collaborative mindset with effective communication skills for technical discussions.
- Extreme Autonomy: Exceptional ability to navigate intense ambiguity, self-unblock execution, and ruthlessly solve ambiguous problems without requiring constant structural support.
- Leadership & Collaboration: Strong communication and mentorship skills, with a collaborative mindset suited for high-bandwidth technical discussions.
Preferred qualifications
- Hands on exposure to LLM, AI, or machine learning principles or projects.
- Cloud Architecture: Deep knowledge of cloud-based platforms (AWS, Azure) and the design principles of distributed systems.
- Ability to ramp up on new technologies, solution against well defined problems and to be iterative about building.
- Passion for innovation and exploring emerging technologies.
- Experience working in remote or globally distributed teams.
- Contributions to open source or tech community projects.
Benefits and support
- generous time off
- parental and wellness leave
- healthcare
- retirement savings program
About Twilio
Twilio is a cloud communications platform-as-a-service company that allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, and perform other communication functions using its web service APIs. The company also offers customer engagement software and a customer data platform, Twilio Segment, to help businesses personalize interactions at scale. Today, it operates as a key infrastructure provider powering digital communications for brands worldwide.
- Industry
- Cloud Communications
- Company size
- 5000-10000 employees
- Founded
- 2008
- Location
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Funding stage
- Public Company
Funding
Public Company · $240M raised
- 2021-07-31Post IPO Debt
- 2018-05-01Post IPO Equity
- 2015-07-31Series E
Leadership
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Administrative Officer
President, Twilio Segment / Chief Revenue Officer
Chief Marketing Officer
Recent coverage
Twilio Investor Relations
Twilio to Announce Third Quarter 2026 Results on October 29, 20262026-10-08
Twilio Investor Relations
Twilio Announces Second Quarter 2026 Results2026-08-06
Twilio Newsroom
Twilio Recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CPaaS for the Fourth Consecutive Year2026-07-16
Twilio Newsroom
Twilio's Next Generation Platform: An Infrastructure Layer for Every Conversation in the Agentic Era2026-05-13