Principal Engineering Consultant

Devspace Group is an Oslo-based consultancy placing remote European software developers and AI specialists with clients in Norway and the US. We operate on long-term, full-time engagements with a fully variable cost model and a lean, founder-led setup. Our clients range from startups to medium size companies and large global enterprises. We work directly, move fast, and expect the same from everyone we bring on. We are experiencing growth and now looking to expand CTO office. We are looking for a Principal Engineering Consultant who will provide technical leadership and support across both our internal organization and selected client engagements. This is a client-facing, consulting and delivery role, not a product engineering position. You will report to our CTO and take ownership of technical hiring, fractional CTO engagements, and pre-sales. Expect regular client contact, candidate interviews, and solution scoping. Key Responsibilities:Technical Interviews & Candidate AssessmentConduct technical interviews and assessments of IT Specialists before they are presented to clients.Evaluate candidates’ technical skills, problem-solving capabilities, seniority, and overall fit with the technical requirements of a role. Fractional CTO Provide CTO-level technical support and advisory services to selected clients, particularly startups and growing technology companies.Advise clients on technology strategy, engineering practices, technical roadmaps, and technology-related business decisions.Support clients in establishing or scaling their engineering teams and technical capabilities.Act as a trusted technical advisor to founders and management teams. Presales & Solution Consulting Support presales activities by translating business requirements into appropriate technical solutions.Scope projects and help define technical requirements, deliverables, and implementation approaches.Design high-level system and solution architectures.Prepare technical estimates, including development effort, team composition, timelines, and technology requirements.Participate in client meetings and support the commercial team with technical expertise throughout the sales process.Identify technical risks, dependencies, and assumptions at an early stage. Internal Technology & AI Development Identify opportunities to improve our internal technology, systems, and processes.Help develop and improve our internal database, AI-powered tools, and technology infrastructure.Evaluate and introduce technologies that can improve the efficiency and scalability of our delivery and recruitment processes.Design and develop Proofs of Concept (PoCs) to validate new technologies, AI solutions, and product ideas.Work closely with the leadership team to identify opportunities where technology can create a competitive advantage for the organization. Experience Level:10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 2–3 years in a lead or founding-engineer position. Technical Breadth – Hands-On:Frontend: React/Next.js, plus one of Angular or Vue; Tailwind.Backend: Node.js (Express/Nest/Fastify) and/or Python (FastAPI/Flask).Databases: Strong understanding of relational schema design, migrations, and query performance; comfortable choosing between SQL, document, and vector stores and explaining the trade-offs.AI applications: Has shipped real-world applications using LlamaIndex, LangChain, LangGraph, Mastra, or an equivalent framework — and can establish the development processes around them, including evaluations, prompt versioning, and cost control.AI-assisted development: Works regularly with agentic coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or similar; understands where they add value and where they can produce unreliable output, and can establish appropriate workflows, guardrails, and review practices for a team.Cloud & infrastructure: Experience with cloud architecture on GCP, AWS, or Azure; Terraform; CI/CD; monitoring and alerting. Product & Startup Experience:Has been the first or one of the first engineers on a product and has established engineering processes from the ground up.Strong product understanding: able to challenge a specification, identify what should or should not be built, and work directly with product teams and users rather than simply waiting for tickets.Comfortable making scope and architecture decisions in situations of uncertainty. Estimation & Scoping:Able to break down an unclear request into an estimate they can stand behind and clearly explain the assumptions, dependencies, and risks behind the estimate to a client.Understands how estimates translate into hourly billing, where uncertainty sits, and how to communicate it before it becomes a problem. Communication:English: C1–C2, spoken and written.Client-facing and outgoing: Comfortable leading client calls, conducting candidate interviews, and presenting to a room. This is a communication-heavy role, not a heads-down engineering position.Able to write clearly and effectively, including architecture documents, decision records, and proposals.Able to explain technical concepts and trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders. Nice to Have:Big data & data engineering: Pipelines, data warehousing, dbt/Airflow-type tooling, streaming.Mobile: React Native, Flutter, or native development.Team leadership: Experience managing engineers in a startup environment.Interviewing: Experience interviewing across different technical roles, including areas outside their primary expertise; sourcing and onboarding experience.Technical presales experience.Agile methodologies: Understanding of different Agile approaches, knowing when to apply them, and experience coaching a team or client.Consultancy experience: Experience working in client-facing environments, embedded in client teams, or across multiple engagements.Security & compliance: Authentication patterns, secrets management, GDPR, SOC Please note: Background and reference checks will be conducted as part of the selection process.