SWE 6 - Principal Software Engineer

I initiate, drive, and land results/impact against critical strategic company-level objectives spanning multiple departments.

Scope

You launch, lead, and land company-level initiatives spanning multiple quarters and sometimes multiple years, driving the business toward a successful future. You collaborate with multiple departments to drive the success of company-wide initiatives, such as unlocking new product verticals, markets, or revenue streams. You ensure our products adapt to scale well beyond WHOOP’s current size and communicate to upper management the importance and impact of your initiatives.

Craft

You proactively identify, launch, and deliver critical initiatives for the business. You define and develop mental frameworks that guide product and technical direction. You create bridges between departments, facilitating execution that requires a high degree of inter-departmental coordination.

You consistently anticipate technical challenges on the horizon and drive teams to look ahead and become prepared to handle them. You architect large scalable systems that unlock new growth, stability, or speed for the business, balancing cost and impact. You set technical direction across stacks and skill sets, inspiring others with your vision of the outcome you are seeking. You amplify your impact by lending your expertise on company-level projects that drive top-level business metrics.

Responsibility	Behaviors
Technical	I focus on technical leadership, defining patterns and operational guidelines across the company. I am incredibly knowledgeable in my area of expertise both inside and outside the company. I consistently guide and protect a focused technology direction and roadmap.
Scoping & Estimation	I scope and review designs/architecture for large and complex projects across departments. I can reduce complexity and prioritize the most important work for the company. I elevate departments in their scoping and estimation skills through frameworks and best practices.
Quality	Through a deep understanding of WHOOP's technical stack and skillset, I navigate and make systems maintainable for the future. I ensure teams are equipped to deliver quality solutions to our members while reducing technical debt.
Operational Excellence	I anticipate technical challenges that impact the future of WHOOP, exploring alternatives and tradeoffs thoroughly. I persistently debug the toughest issues through the entire stack regardless of the environment, finding the root cause or a viable workaround.
Design	I can design products and features end to end, considering the interoperability of stacks and skill sets.
Process Improvement	I identify when a process needs to be eliminated due to change or inefficiency and aim to replace and/or automate it away. I introduce and champion the industry's best processes at WHOOP to ensure the growth and success of our engineering teams.

Communication and Collaboration

You work closely with major stakeholders in the business, keeping yourself apprised of the highest priority initiatives across the company. You guide your department’s prioritization of projects based on your insight from the rest of the company. You seek feedback from other departments to better bridge them and your department.

You advise your Director, Vice President, and/or C-Suite on problems you see on the horizon that could impact the department and how you might systematically address them. You drive consensus between departments with clear intent and vision. Your communication spans department leaders with clarity, resolve, and accountability.

Responsibility	Behaviors
Autonomy	I pull in the right domain expertise to help advise my strategy or solutions before pitching. I rely on my peers' feedback to round out my approach.
Accountability	I plan and scope complex, multi-team, long-term projects, including ones with external to WHOOP dependencies. I own 1 or more large, mission-critical growth areas for the company, overseeing all aspects from design through implementation through operation.
Data Driven	I consider larger company context and potential future implications between projects. I use my expertise in the product space to make decisions that steer the business toward success.
Clarity	I identify problems that need to be solved across departments and advocate for their prioritization. I collaborate with coworkers across the company to document and design how systems work and interact, driving clarity between teams, groups, and departments. I clearly communicate technical issues and tie work back to company-wide objectives.
Drives Consensus	I evangelize and execute solutions with buy-in across major stakeholders. I can de-escalate conflict during technical decisions and drive agreement and conclusion.

Coaching

You grow the company by sharing your expertise and educating others. You maintain a high bar for quality and stability through architecture and design reviews, educating others as you review. You create best practices where needed and drive those practices to mass adoption, simplifying future work.

When teams take on large challenges, you set them up for success through education, operating frameworks, and guidance in the solution space. You ensure their execution levels them up in the space, and learnings are extracted and shared with broader audiences.

Like Senior Staff, you continue to sponsor individuals.

Responsibility	Behaviors
Mentorship	I act as a force multiplier, sharing my knowledge and delegating to help others grow. I effectively develop engineers around me through broad education, up-leveling the department as a result.
Company Influence	I build leaders in my department and coach them to make tactical decisions autonomously. I am a thought leader within the department, influencing architecture standards and contributing to the company's multi-year tech strategy and roadmap. I contribute to the external engineering brand in pursuit of sharing my expertise with a larger audience.

Strategy & Execution

You focus your strategic efforts on up-leveling the department and continuously make diligent decisions on when to employ your energy executing. You stay aligned with the top priorities of the company and contribute to the strategic direction of those priorities. You gain buy-in on your vision for the business and drive the direction, coordinating departments. You stay nimble and aware of the state of the industry to help guide timely initiatives.

Responsibility	Behaviors
Define Problems	I identify problems on the horizon for the business and develop strategies to mitigate them before their arrival.
Directionality	I provide technical direction on strategic initiatives across the business, guiding execution through active coaching and thought leadership.
Staying Nimble	I consider the state of the industry and technical communities to inform better and guide the company.
Vision	I define and drive the vision for the areas and domains I own, inspiring others to drive it alongside me.

Moving to the SWE 7 level

• You begin to promote WHOOP’s engineering brand through industry-wide impact.
• You deliver value back to the industry and community, setting WHOOP as a leading contributor in a domain or field.