Principal Application Modernization Engineer
About this role
About Liatrio
At Liatrio, we enable real transformation.
We help industry-leading enterprises break free from legacy systems and adopt AI that reshapes how teams build, deliver, and thrive at scale.
We partner directly with enterprise teams to embed AI-native practices into delivery– accelerating modernization, reducing risk, and shipping production-grade AI systems that set the standard for the industry.
Our people embed directly inside client organizations, leading hands-on AI enablement and transformations that reshape how entire enterprises build and operate at scale.
If you’re ready to lead real AI transformation, this is where you belong.
About the Role
The Principal Application Modernization Engineer is a senior technical leader who defines the scope of technical work, owns the architectural direction of complex workstreams, and is accountable for the technical outcomes of the engagement.
You operate in ambiguity and make it clear. You walk into a legacy codebase, a stalled migration, or a cloud-native effort that's lost its footing, and you quickly develop a credible read on what's actually happening and what needs to change. You make the hard technical calls — and communicate them in a way that builds trust with both the engineers executing the work and the technical leaders on the client side.
What You'll Do
Define the scope of technical work related to deliverables and milestones of the engagement
Own the architectural direction of your workstream — making key technical decisions, documenting tradeoffs, and ensuring the team is building toward something coherent and maintainable
Responsible for code quality, architecture, and technical direction across the team
Write and review production code across the stack — your technical judgment sets the bar, and you're in the work alongside the team
Integrate AI and LLM capabilities into client applications — designing the architecture for agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, intelligent automation, and AI-augmented developer tooling, and guiding your team through implementation
Anticipate technical risk before it becomes delivery risk — surface issues early, define mitigation strategies, and communicate proactively
Participate in scoping discussions and SOW architecture for new and existing customers
Generate ideas, be willing to fail fast, and demonstrate with POCs
Drive knowledge sharing in and out of client engagements
Serve as the senior technical point of contact for your workstream — engaging directly with client engineering managers and directors on architecture, delivery strategy, and technical risk
Build trusted relationships with client technical leaders
Proactively identify opportunities to improve engineering practices and technical quality at the client, and drive that change
Participate in business development including client expansion conversations and SOW developmen
Responsible and accountable for the technical outcomes of your team
Write monthly feedback for all engineers on your workstream in collaboration with the Delivery Lead
Mentor engineers through real technical challenges — pairing on hard problems, reviewing architecture decisions, giving feedback that raises their game
Organize and break down complex work so the team can execute with clarity
Share responsibility for the morale and well-being of the Liatrio team on your engagement
Technical Ownership and Architecture
Client Technical Engagement
Team Leadership and Development
Experience and Skills
You have a track record of owning the architectural direction of complex workstreams in enterprise environments — you've made the hard technical calls, been accountable for the outcomes, and learned from the experiences that didn't go as planned
You've modernized large legacy applications in real enterprise environments — you understand the strangler fig pattern, incremental refactoring, and event-driven decomposition as practical strategies you've applied under real constraints
You're fluent across the full delivery stack — frontend, backend, APIs, data, cloud infrastructure — with genuine depth in multiple areas
You've designed and delivered cloud-native, distributed systems at enterprise scale — microservices, event-driven architectures, API gateways, async messaging — and you understand the failure modes and operational complexity that comes with them
You've operated in large enterprise environments with multi-cloud setups, complex organizational structures, and legacy constraints — and you know how to deliver meaningful progress despite them
You can hold the technical bar for an entire workstream — reviewing architecture, reviewing code, catching problems early, and developing engineers through the process
You have enough knowledge of platform engineering, infrastructure as code, cloud-native platform adoption — whether that's Kubernetes, managed container services, or other
orchestration platforms depending on client environment — and DevOps practices to make good architectural decisions and speak credibly to the engineers responsible for the platform
You've built or integrated AI capabilities — you understand the full picture from integration through deployment, observability, and the ongoing work of keeping AI-powered features reliable
You can have a credible conversation with client technical leaders about where AI creates genuine leverage — grounded in what's real
Engineering and Architecture
AI and Intelligent Systems
Requirements
8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with demonstrated ownership of complex technical workstreams
Must be authorized to work in the United States or Canada without sponsorship
Travel availability: 25-50% depending on client needs
Specifics
Full benefits including unlimited PTO, funded HSA option, 401k match, monthly LiveWell stipend, and quarterly company bonus
Annual base salary: $170,000 - $200,000 depending on experience
Originally posted on Himalayas
