Principal Software Engineer

What You’ll Do

• Define Technical Strategy: Set the long-term architectural vision for core platform systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficiency.
• Lead Complex System Design: Drive the design and evolution of large-scale distributed systems that power Fivetran’s data movement platform.
• Drive Cross-Team Initiatives: Lead high-impact projects spanning multiple teams, align stakeholders, and ensure successful execution.
• Raise the Engineering Bar: Establish best practices for system design, code quality, and operational excellence across the organization.
• Mentor and Influence: Guide and mentor senior and staff engineers, shaping technical decision-making beyond your immediate team.
• Improve Platform Performance: Identify and lead efforts to optimize system performance, reliability, and cost at scale.
• Champion Innovation: Evaluate and introduce new technologies and approaches to improve developer experience and platform capabilities.

Skills We’re Looking For

• Extensive Experience: 12+ years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• System Design Mastery: Proven ability to design and evolve complex, scalable, and reliable platform architectures.
• Technical Leadership: Demonstrated experience leading cross-team technical initiatives and influencing engineering direction.
• Strong Programming Skills: Expertise in backend development (Java preferred) with a solid foundation in data structures and system fundamentals.
• Performance & Reliability: Experience optimizing system performance, scalability, and cost in high-throughput systems.
• Communication & Influence: Strong ability to communicate complex technical ideas and influence senior stakeholders.
• Ownership & Ambiguity: Track record of driving ambiguous, high-impact problems from definition to execution.

Bonus Skills

• Experience in data processing (ETL, ELT) and/or cloud-based platforms
• Experience working in startup environments.

Technologies You’ll Use

• Java (JVM, JIT, GC tuning, thread management), JUnit
• Claude Code
• Docker and Kubernetes
• AWS, GCP
• Bazel, BuildKite
• Observability tools (Datadog, Grafana)

Perks and Benefits

• 100% employer-paid medical insurance*
• Generous paid time-off policy (PTO), plus paid sick time, inclusive parental leave policy, holidays, and volunteer days off
• RSU stock grants*
• Professional development and training opportunities
• Company virtual happy hours, free food, and fun team-building activities
• Monthly cell phone stipend
• Access to an innovative mental health support platform