---
title: 'Principal Software Engineer, Platform at PermitFlow'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-software-engineer-platform-permitflow-new-york-gdw59727qgqv'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-30'
---

# Principal Software Engineer, Platform at PermitFlow

- **Company:** PermitFlow
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Compensation:** $250k–$300k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-30
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/permitflow/454c26bc-d100-4211-95aa-5ef5c0c1cdc3

## Job description

PermitFlow is redefining how America builds. We’re an applied AI company serving the nation’s builders, tackling one of the largest information challenges in the economy: understanding what can be built, where, and how. Our AI agent workforce helps the fastest-growing construction companies navigate everything from permitting and licensing to inspections and project closeouts – accelerating housing, clean-energy, and infrastructure development across the country. Despite being a $1.6T industry, construction still suffers from massive delays, wasted capital, and lost opportunity. PermitFlow has already delivered unprecedented speed, accuracy, and visibility to over $20B in development, helping contractors reduce compliance time, de-risk projects, and scale with confidence. As the U.S. enters a new capex supercycle across data centers, factories, housing, and renewables, joining PermitFlow means building the AI infrastructure at the core of every construction project driving the next wave of reindustrialization. We’ve raised over $90M, most recently completing our [Series B,](https://www.permitflow.com/blog/permitflow-series-b) from top-tier investors including Accel, [Kleiner Perkins](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7401703305569275904/), Initialized, Y Combinator, Felicis, and Altos Ventures, with backing from leaders at OpenAI, Google, Procore, ServiceTitan, Zillow, PlanGrid, and Uber.

Our HQ is in New York City with a hybrid schedule (3 in-office days per week). We prefer NYC-based candidates or those open to relocation.

## Role Overview

We’re hiring a Principal Engineer to own the evolution of our architecture and platform so it works for agents as well as people. Our goal is simple: double the output of our entire organization while raising the quality bar. The scope is the whole platform. You’ll work across infrastructure, shared services, and product code, and step in as a product engineer anywhere in the stack when that is the fastest way to move. The ideal candidate is deep in code architecture and platform engineering, already works agent-first, and has built foundations that other teams adopted because they were better. This role reports directly to our VP of Engineering.

## What You'll Do

- Own the architecture of our codebase. Set the patterns, module boundaries, and domain abstractions across our monorepo, and lead the refactors and migrations that get us there.
- Design the monorepo for agents. Structure packages, ownership, the build graph, and conventions so an agent can find the right context, make a scoped change, and verify it without reading the whole repo.
- Build the platform substrate. Own the shared services, infrastructure, and paved paths (data access, background jobs, environments, observability) that product teams build on and agents can use safely.
- Own the agentic SDLC. Define how work moves from ticket to production when agents do much of the writing, testing, and reviewing. Set the defaults every team builds on, and change them as models and tools improve.
- Scale verification with volume. Build AI-assisted code review, test generation, and CI gates so confidence to merge keeps pace as PR volume doubles. Decide where human review is required and where it is not.
- Put agents to work in the background. Stand up agents that pick up well-scoped tickets, triage flaky tests, run dependency upgrades and large migrations, and draft fixes from incidents and error reports.

## What We're Looking For

- You've owned the architecture of a large, multi-team codebase. You've set the module boundaries and patterns others build within, run monorepo tooling (Nx, Turborepo, Bazel, or similar), and led migrations that changed how a whole org works.
- Strong platform and infrastructure depth: cloud infrastructure, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, observability, and services you've run in production through real incidents.
- You can work across the stack as a product engineer, from data model to UI, and you're happy to do it.
- You work agent-first today. A large share of the code you ship comes from AI coding agents, and you have specific, earned opinions on where they break and how codebase structure fixes that.
- Current knowledge of the agentic stack as it applies to software engineering: context engineering, agent instructions and skills, MCP, sandboxed execution, and how to evaluate a coding agent's output.
- You operate with earned authority. You influence through demonstrated judgment, working code, and clear writing rather than title or mandate.
- 15+ years of software engineering experience, including time setting technical direction across multiple teams.

## What We Offer

- Competitive salary and meaningful equity in a high-growth company
- 100% company-paid base medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees + healthcare FSA
- 401(k) savings plan
- Unlimited PTO and paid family leave
- Home office & equipment stipend
- Daily in-office lunch and dinner provided
- Commuter benefits (pre-tax transit and parking)

PermitFlow provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or family status, as protected by applicable law.

We are committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce and welcome people from all backgrounds, experiences, perspectives, and abilities. All employment decisions are based on merit, qualifications, and business needs.

## About PermitFlow

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: PermitFlow is an AI-powered platform that automates construction permitting, acting as the “AI workforce” for pre-construction to help builders submit, track, and obtain permits faster.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series B, $90.5M total funding to date)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Francis Thumpasery (CEO) and Samuel K. Lam (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Construction technology (construction permitting software)
- **Target customers**: General contractors, developers, architects, home builders, commercial contractors, and home services contractors (B2B, SMB to Enterprise)
- **Mission/purpose**: “Streamline the entire pre-construction process, starting with fast, effortless, and predictable permitting” – making construction faster and more affordable by removing bureaucratic friction.

## Products & Services
PermitFlow offers a suite of AI agents that handle the full permitting lifecycle:
- **[Intake Agent](https://www.permitflow.com)**: Automatically pulls project data from CRM, files, and contracts to kick off permitting with minimal manual work.
- **[Research Agent](https://www.permitflow.com)**: Searches PermitFlow’s permit database and AHJ (Authority Having Jurisdiction) portals to identify requirements, fees, and timelines with high accuracy.
- **[Submission Agent](https://www.permitflow.com)**: Prepares and submits complete forms, attachments, and supporting documents directly to the AHJ.
- **[Coordination Agent](https://www.permitflow.com)**: Tracks AHJ updates, captures and addresses comments, and follows up with all stakeholders to keep permits moving.
- **[Issuance Agent](https://www.permitflow.com)**: Receives issued permits, tracks inspections, and handles close-out tasks, syncing with the customer’s CRM.

The platform is SaaS-based, with enterprise-level security (SOC 2 & ISO 27001 certified).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metrics**:
  - Annual revenue: ~$9M (estimated per LinkedIn data)
  - Total funding: $90.5M (per company website; LinkedIn reports $36.5M, likely a lower total)
  - Construction value permitted: $20B+
  - 2.5× faster permit approvals; 5× ROI for customers; 90% reduction in administrative workload
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Accel (led Series B), Kleiner Perkins (led Series A), Initialized Capital (led seed), Y Combinator (Winter 2022 batch). Backed by founders and executives from Uber, Amazon, and other tech companies.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount: 112 employees (+48.4% YoY)
  - Operating in 7,000+ AHJs across the U.S.
  - 12M+ data points captured on requirements, comments, and approval decisions
  - LinkedIn followers: 26,862 (+79.2% yearly)
  - 40 active job postings (+14.3% yearly)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Largest proprietary permitting dataset**: 12M+ data points across 7,000+ AHJs, enabling AI agents to deliver unmatched accuracy and speed.
- **End-to-end automation**: The only platform that covers the entire permitting lifecycle with AI agents, replacing fragmented manual workflows.
- **Enterprise-grade security**: SOC 2 & ISO 27001 certified, meeting the requirements of large developers and contractors.
- **First-mover in AI for construction permitting**: No other platform offers a similar AI-native approach at scale.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expand AI workforce capabilities**: Continue building and refining AI agents to cover more pre-construction tasks (e.g., inspections, close-out).
- **Scale to more AHJs**: Onboard additional municipalities to increase coverage and data density.
- **Drive adoption among large enterprises**: Target commercial contractors and national home builders to capture higher-value contracts.
- **Product-led growth**: Use the platform’s ROI (5× return, 90% admin reduction) to convert mid-market and enterprise accounts.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven work**: Solving a critical, overlooked problem – housing shortages, aging infrastructure, and rising costs – by making construction faster and more affordable.
- **Fast-paced, ownership culture**: Core values include Urgency, Ownership, Team Player, and Thrive on Change. Employees are encouraged to take full responsibility for outcomes and move quickly.
- **Remote/hybrid flexibility**: Some roles are fully remote (e.g., Administrative Assistant, Mid-Market Account Executive), while others are NYC hybrid (e.g., Permit Operations Lead). The company operates across 5 countries (U.S., Canada, India, Pakistan, UK).
- **Strong engineering culture**: Building “serious tech” with AI agents, a large dataset, and modern stack. The CTO (Samuel Lam) is a Harvard CS & Statistics grad and former Uber engineer.
- **Growth trajectory**: 48% headcount growth YoY, 40+ open roles, and $90.5M in funding signal a rapidly scaling company with ample career advancement opportunities.
- **Compensation & culture**: Rated 4.1/5 on employer review sites, with strong marks for compensation (4.1) and career growth (4.1). Benefits and perks are typical of a well-funded startup.

## Sources
1. [permitflow.com](https://www.permitflow.com) – Company homepage, product descriptions, metrics
2. [permitflow.com/about-us](https://www.permitflow.com/about-us) – About page, funding amount ($90.5M), mission, values, history
3. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/permitflow) – LinkedIn company page: headcount, revenue estimate, funding, employee breakdown, job postings
4. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/permitflow) – Y Combinator profile: founders, batch, team size, job listings
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/permitflow) – Careers page with open positions

## Other roles at PermitFlow

- [Staff Analytics Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-analytics-engineer-permitflow-new-york-g41mqfbgbmq3) — New York, NY
- [Staff Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-permitflow-new-york-y1bvc8tewwph) — New York, NY
- [Field Marketing & Campaigns Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/field-marketing-campaigns-manager-permitflow-new-york-hx585e5efwtj) — New York, NY
- [Enterprise Account Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-manager-permitflow-remote-n5d68kc6rpb8)
- [Principal Software Engineer, AI](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-software-engineer-ai-permitflow-new-york-w3k3r3hy9xbc) — New York, NY
- [Director, Strategic Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/director-strategic-partnerships-permitflow-united-states-sqvzn4wvbkma) — United States
- [Sales Engineer - Commercial](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-engineer-commercial-permitflow-remote-czc2wbx3dvn6)
- [Enterprise Customer Success Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-customer-success-manager-permitflow-new-york-zrfha3ppxb8m) — New York, NY
- [Sr. Account Executive – AECO & National Accounts](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-account-executive-aeco-national-accounts-permitflow-united-states-a4t7rvk9yqsf) — United States
- [Account Executive – AECO & National Accounts](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-aeco-national-accounts-permitflow-united-states-ahckfcy40nrn) — United States