Who are we looking for?

Choice Hotels, one of the world’s largest lodging franchisors, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join our Enterprise Architecture team. This individual will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of technology at Choice by driving innovation, mentoring engineers, and engaging directly with stakeholders to modernize and optimize business processes.

You’ll work in a dynamic environment where your technical leadership, customer empathy, and consulting mindset will directly influence strategic initiatives and next-generation platforms. If you’re a full-stack engineer with a knack for solving customer pain points, driving continuous improvement, and building scalable solutions — this is your opportunity to #MakeItYourChoice.

Your Responsibilities

• Serve as a lead engineer and consultant, partnering with stakeholders to identify technical solutions to business challenges.
• Design and implement scalable, secure, and maintainable systems with a customer-first mindset.
• Engage directly with business and technology partners to understand end-user pain points and suggest innovative, AI-augmented solutions.
• Mentor and coach a team of engineers within a newly formed innovation team.
• Champion agile best practices, DevOps principles, and a culture of continuous improvement.
• Lead the architecture and design of full-stack applications, using languages such as Java, Python, TypeScript (React/Next.js), and frameworks like Spring or Node.js.
• Guide the implementation of AI-assisted development using tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude via Cline.bot.
• Contribute to technical documentation, knowledge sharing, and proof-of-concept development.
• Partner with Salesforce engineers and architects to assess integration opportunities (Salesforce experience a plus).
• Continuously explore emerging technologies and make recommendations on their potential value to the organization.

Your Experience, Skills & Competencies

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science, engineering, or equivalent work experience.
• 10+ years of professional software development experience, with 4+ years in a technical leadership or architecture role.
• Experience in designing, developing, and scaling full-stack solutions in cloud-native environments (AWS preferred).
• Familiarity with Salesforce architecture and integration patterns is a plus.
• Expertise in modern architecture patterns (microservices, APIs, messaging, event-driven).
• Background in consulting or customer-facing roles strongly preferred.
• Strong problem-solving abilities and comfort with ambiguity.
• Passion for mentoring, process rewiring, and cultivating innovation within development teams.
• Experience leading teams through the use of DevOps tooling (e.g., Harness, Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
• Demonstrated experience with performance optimization and system scalability strategies.
• Ability to effectively influence and collaborate with both technical and business stakeholders.
• High adaptability and enthusiasm for learning and applying generative AI tools in software engineering.

Your Team

This is a strategic individual contributor role reporting to the Senior Director, Enterprise Architecture. You will serve as a key mentor and technical guide to a growing innovation engineering team, while collaborating with solution architects, business stakeholders, and platform teams across the organization.

Your Work Location

As our Principal Software Engineer, you will be based in our Scottsdale, AZ technology hub—a collaborative, state-of-the-art facility designed to enable creativity, innovation, and technical excellence.

About Choice

Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH) is one of the largest lodging franchisors in the world, with nearly 7,500 hotels across 46 countries. Our brands span upscale to economy, all supporting the dreams of our franchisees—entrepreneurs who bet on themselves. At our Scottsdale technology center and global headquarters, we’re united by a belief in building a better tomorrow, and we’re looking for leaders like you to make it happen.

*** PLEASE NOTE: This role is not eligible for sponsorship ***

Ability to model Choice’s Cultural Values: Welcome and Respect Everyone, Be Bold, Be Quick, Listen, Be Curious and Show Integrity.