Principal Systems Engineer sets technical direction for core infrastructure, owns architecture for reliability and performance at scale, and mentors senior engineers. Requires deep expertise in virtualization, distributed storage like Ceph, and Linux kernel primitives.
280k – 380k/yr
On-siteDevOps / SRE
About the role
Responsibilities
Own and drive the architectural direction for critical infrastructure platforms.
Translate business and product strategy into long-term technical roadmaps and execution plans.
Accountable for production outcomes, including reliability, performance, and operational excellence.
Mentor senior engineers and act as a force multiplier.
Operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces where both the problem and the solution need to be defined.
Requirements
Deep familiarity with virtualization technologies such as Firecracker, QEMU, or Cloud Hypervisor, and an understanding of the tradeoffs between them.
Experience with distributed storage systems (Ceph) and a strong grasp of low-level file system performance, I/O tuning, and storage reliability at scale.
Comfort working at the kernel and filesystems level: experience with eBPF, cgroups, namespaces, or similar Linux primitives.
Track record of leading through influence and shaping technical direction while operating as an individual contributor.
Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex systems-level concepts to engineers, leadership, and non-technical stakeholders.
Leads reliability, scalability, and modernization of Pinterest's critical online systems including storage, caching, and real-time analytics at massive scale. Drives strategic vision, cross-functional initiatives like Kubernetes migration, requiring 12+ years in distributed systems and expertise in C++, Java, or Python.
285k – 500k/yr
Hybrid12+ YOEDevOps / SRE
Principal Engineer, Compute Fleet Management
DatabricksBellevue, WA
Leads compute fleet management across AWS, Azure, and GCP, optimizing billions of resources for peak performance, 99.99% availability, and 60%+ utilization. Requires deep distributed systems expertise and cross-team leadership for mission-critical infrastructure.
264k – 322k/yr
On-siteDevOps / SRE
Principal Production Engineer
CrusoeSan Francisco, CA +1
Owns reliability, scalability, and observability of cloud infrastructure including compute, storage, and networking at massive scale. Drives SLOs, incident response, tooling, and mentors engineers; requires 15+ years experience with data centers and internet-scale operations.
261k – 326k/yr
On-site15+ YOEDevOps / SRE
Principal Systems Software Engineer
CrusoeSan Francisco, CA +1
Leads architecture of next-generation AI infrastructure, unifying BMaaS, IaaS, and CaaS with focus on high-performance I/O paths, kernel optimizations, and GPU workloads. Requires 12+ years hyperscale experience, deep Linux/virtualization expertise, and hardware-software co-design skills.
260k – 340k/yr
On-site12+ YOEDevOps / SRE
Senior Principal Software Engineer, Infrastructure
DockerSeattle, WA
Technical visionary architecting Docker's foundational platform for accounts, billing, data, governance, and infrastructure. Drives cross-company strategy enabling enterprise growth, requiring 12+ years experience in large-scale distributed systems.