Principal Engineer, Platform & Applications

Position Title: Principal Engineer, Platform & Applications

Position Description: Protingent Staffing has an exciting remote Direct Hire opportunity.

Job Responsibilities

• Define and own the multi-year technical architecture and standards for the entire Developer Platform ecosystem, ensuring resilience, performance, and scalability across all internal tools and infrastructure.
• Own the architectural evolution and technical governance of the mission-critical Bazel build system and associated toolchains, ensuring optimized, reproducible, and hermetic builds for our core product.
• Define the technical standards for Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices and CI/CD pipeline governance (GitLab) for critical developer services, focusing on optimizing efficiency, uptime, and developer experience (DX).
• Architect and lead the implementation of systems for measuring and improving engineering performance, utilizing established metrics frameworks (e.g., DORA, FLOW, SPACE).
• Act as the technical decision-maker and expert consultant for complex architecture challenges within Platform Engineering and Enablement, ensuring alignment across technical roadmaps.
• Champion and architect solutions that enforce technical standards, drive code quality, and automate governance across the entire developer lifecycle.
• Elevate the organization’s technical capability by providing expert-level consulting, conducting rigorous design reviews, and introducing advanced architectural patterns to all engineering teams within the Platform Group.

Job Qualifications

• 12 years of progressive experience in Software Engineering, with a significant focus on Platform Engineering, Developer Experience, or Build/Release Engineering.
• 5 years acting as a Principal Engineer, Chief Architect, or equivalent Individual Contributor role, demonstrating the ability to set technical strategy and drive architectural initiatives across multiple functional teams.

Core Systems Mastery: Mandatory expert-level proficiency in advanced build systems (Bazel), complex CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI/GitHub Actions), and modern configuration/deployment technologies.

Platform & Tooling Architecture

• Deep expertise in architecting, designing, and scaling complex internal developer platforms, including experience with Developer Portals (e.g., Backstage) and internal service-oriented applications built with Node.js/Go/Python.

Cloud & Systems Expertise

• Strong knowledge of Cloud Architecture (AWS preferred), distributed systems design, SRE principles, and performance engineering.
• Exceptional technical communication, negotiation, and influence skills with the ability to articulate and defend complex architectural concepts to both technical and executive audiences.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Job Details

• Direct Hire
• Location: Remote (sitting anywhere in the US)
• Pay Rate Range: $175,000-$234,250

About Protingent

Protingent is an Award-Winning provider of top-tier Engineering and IT talent, trusted by companies at the forefront of innovation – from Software and Aerospace to AI, Clean Tech, Medical Devices, and Connected Technologies. We’re passionate about making a positive impact by connecting exceptional talent with meaningful opportunities and helping our clients build the future.

Protingent

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