Principal Engineer

WHO WE ARE

We’re Hook—an award-winning creative content agency. With a collaborative, maker-centric team, and an emphasis on production-led design, we make ads, campaigns, and experiences that drive growth for the world’s most innovative brands.

Our mission is to integrate creative and production to help grow brands faster. But we believe what’s most important are the people who work with us and the experience they have along the way. We want clients to think of us as the best agency they’ve ever worked with, and we want everyone at Hook to feel like this is the best job they’ve had yet.

WHAT’S A PRINCIPAL ENGINEER AT HOOK?

You're happiest when someone on the creative team says 'I don't know how we did this before.' You build the tools that make that possible.

As one of Hook's principal pipeline engineers, you own the internal systems and tools that make our creative and production teams faster, smarter, and more capable, everything from web applications and workflow automation to plugins for the Adobe Creative Suite (UXP/CEP/Extendscript) and Figma. You hold yourself to a high bar across the entire development lifecycle: problem discovery, architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, and the long-term health of what you ship. You care about the craft of software as much as the outcome.

You're self-directed and comfortable owning complex products from the first idea through continued development, without needing a roadmap handed to you. You work at the intersection of engineering and creative practice, and you understand that a great tool in the right hands can change what's possible. When a client project needs a strong technical lead, you're ready to step in with that same ownership mindset.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Design, build, and maintain internal pipeline tools and systems that help Hook's creative, production, and operations teams work more efficiently including web applications, workflow automation, and API integrations
• Work closely and empathetically with Motion Designers, Art Directors, and Producers to deeply understand their workflows, gather requirements, and translate their creative challenges into technical solutions.
• Develop plugins and extensions for Adobe Creative Suite applications (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator) and Figma, primarily in TypeScript
• Own product areas end-to-end: problem discovery, UX consideration, technical design, implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing improvement
• Identify workflow bottlenecks across departments and propose and execute technical solutions
• Recommend and evaluate new tools, frameworks, and approaches, especially in areas where Hook has evolving or emerging needs
• Serve as technical lead on select client projects (typically websites or small web applications), and occasionally manage freelance developers contributing to those engagements
• Codify your knowledge through documentation, best practices, and internal guides that help the broader team level up
• Participate in technical strategy as a craft leader, pushing Hook's capabilities forward

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

• Deep expertise in TypeScript and the Node.js ecosystem, this is your primary language and environment
• A demonstrated love of the whole development cycle: from proposal and planning through implementation, testing, optimization, and deployment
• Proven experience building and shipping production-grade applications end-to-end, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability throughout
• Experience developing plugins, extensions, or integrations for creative software — Adobe apps (After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator), Figma, or similar tools
• Proficiency with Python, bash, and associated scripting and automation tools