Principal software engineer (search and cloud platforms)

A leading organization is hiring a principal software engineer to set technical direction and deliver complex, scalable software solutions. This position blends hands-on engineering with technical leadership, including software design ownership, development standards, architecture alignment, and production support. The principal software engineer partners across IT and business stakeholders, leads large initiatives, and guides developers on design and implementation practices.

Responsibilities

• Analyze business and technical requirements and translate them into solution designs for complex applications and processes.
• Create technical designs for custom solutions, including web, component-based, distributed, and N-tier architectures.
• Serve as technical lead for large initiatives by coordinating development activities, guiding design decisions, and ensuring delivery outcomes.
• Provide hands-on development support and contribute to implementations that align with industry standards and internal engineering practices.
• Establish coding and design standards and mentor software developers on design methods and implementation quality.
• Define and promote standard database design approaches and integration patterns.
• Partner with internal users to build a working understanding of business workflows and deliver solutions aligned to operational needs.
• Provide production support and consulting for process, application, and system issues, including troubleshooting and root cause analysis.
• Participate in cross-functional communication, knowledge sharing, product reviews, testing, and pilots.
• Evaluate modern tools and technologies and recommend selections that improve engineering outcomes and delivery quality.
• Build strong working relationships across IT teams and internal stakeholders to support successful implementation and ongoing support.
• Apply new technologies, tools, and platforms efficiently to accelerate project execution.
• Perform additional responsibilities as needed.

Required experience and skills

Work arrangement

• Hybrid schedule with Tuesday through Thursday in office.

Experience level and education

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related field and more than 10 years of relevant experience, or
• Master’s degree in a related field and more than 8 years of relevant experience.

Core engineering and architecture

• Experience designing and delivering web, component, distributed, and N-tier solutions, including building scalable and reliable systems.
• Experience implementing methodologies such as RAD, UML, or other object-oriented design methods.
• Ability to work on highly complex projects with minimal guidance and take responsibility for delivery success.

Search and cloud (required)

• SOLR experience (minimum 3 to 4 years).
• Cloud platform experience with AWS or Microsoft Azure (minimum 3 to 4 years).

DevOps and deployment tooling (required)

• Familiarity with DevOps tools including Docker, Kubernetes, and Helm (minimum 3 to 4 years).

Programming languages (required)

• Familiarity with Java, Kotlin, and Python (minimum 5 to 6 years).

Version control

• Experience with source control platforms such as BitBucket or GitHub.

Web and integration technologies

• Experience with web standards and technologies such as HTML, DHTML, XML, XSL, XSLT, style sheets, and JavaScript.
• Experience with common protocols and integration styles including SOAP, REST, HTTPS, FTP, and SMTP.
• Knowledge of web services, orchestration, and messaging patterns.

Platform experience (one or more required)

• Microsoft platform experience, which may include: VSTS, TFS, SharePoint, SQL Server; ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, ASP, .NET Framework, web services; Internet Information Services (IIS); and strong working knowledge of .NET applications.
• Oracle platform experience, which may include: Oracle APEX solution design and development; SQL and PL/SQL; exposure to Oracle Data Integrator; and exposure to Oracle Workflow, XML Publisher, JDeveloper, or Discoverer tools.
• J2EE platform experience, which may include: J2EE application servers; JSP; Java Server Faces; ADF Oracle technology stack or STRUTS; and building web applications using Java/J2EE, Spring Framework, Spring MVC, and Hibernate.

Cloud and related technologies

• Experience with technologies such as SOLR, Elasticsearch, NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Redis, and similar), AWS, and CDN services.
• Experience with MuleSoft.
• AWS or Azure experience.

Nice to have

• Familiarity with UI frameworks such as Angular, React, Ember, or Bootstrap.
• Experience with Pix4D or Matic.

FAQ

1. What are the core responsibilities of a Principal Software Engineer in search and cloud platforms?
This role leads the design and evolution of large-scale search systems and cloud-native platforms. It involves defining architecture, setting technical direction, and ensuring systems are scalable, reliable, and performant. The engineer also contributes hands-on to critical components and guides complex technical decisions.

2. What types of search technologies are typically used in this role?
Technologies often include distributed search engines like Elasticsearch, Solr, or OpenSearch. These systems support indexing, querying, and relevance tuning for large datasets. The role may also involve building custom ranking algorithms and optimizing search performance.

3. How does cloud platform expertise apply to this position?
The role leverages cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud to build scalable and resilient systems. It includes designing cloud-native architectures, managing infrastructure, and optimizing costs. Experience with containers and orchestration tools like Kubernetes is often required.

4. What level of system design is expected from a principal engineer?
A principal engineer is expected to design complex, distributed systems with high availability and fault tolerance. This includes making decisions on architecture patterns, data storage, and service communication. The role requires deep expertise in scalability and performance optimization.

5. How does this role influence engineering teams?
The principal engineer provides technical leadership and mentorship across teams. They establish best practices, review designs, and ensure alignment with long-term architecture goals. Influence is often achieved through expertise and collaboration rather than direct management.

6. What challenges are common in search and cloud platform engineering?
Challenges include handling large-scale data, optimizing search relevance, and maintaining low latency. Managing distributed systems and ensuring system reliability can also be complex. Balancing performance with cost efficiency is another key challenge.