Principal Engineer, Product Engineering

About the role

This senior individual contributor role focuses on shaping the technical future of 1Password's core product experiences. You will translate ambitious product goals into scalable and operationally sound systems, driving architectural decisions and engineering standards across the entire product ecosystem.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Define the architectural direction for key product capabilities, encompassing client applications, distributed services, data platforms, and shared infrastructure.
• Establish engineering standards and reusable architectural patterns to ensure scalable, maintainable, and resilient product systems.
• Guide the long-term technical strategy for critical product areas, balancing immediate delivery needs with scalability and operational sustainability.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, Security, Privacy, Infrastructure, and Data teams to align technical decisions with customer needs and operational durability.
• Oversee the integration of AI-powered features into customer-facing products, ensuring reliability, safety, and customer trust.
• Develop engineering expectations for AI-enabled systems, including evaluation frameworks, rollout safety, telemetry, and operational controls.
• Influence architectural decisions related to distributed systems, event-driven architectures, synchronization, scalability, reliability, and interoperability.
• Mentor engineers across the organization through technical leadership, architecture reviews, and hands-on problem solving.

Requirements

• Experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems with a focus on reliability, scalability, maintainability, and operational excellence.
• Proven track record of driving architecture and technical direction across multiple teams or product domains.
• Strong systems thinking ability, with a capacity to reason about platform boundaries, distributed system constraints, developer experience, and long-term technical sustainability.
• Experience building customer-facing product systems that span clients, APIs, distributed services, cloud infrastructure, and data platforms.
• Experience building or scaling event-driven systems, microservices architectures, or shared platform infrastructure in production.
• Practical experience integrating AI or ML capabilities into production applications, understanding the engineering trade-offs involved in trust-sensitive products.
• Strong understanding of privacy-preserving and security-conscious system design, including data handling, permissions, and auditability.
• Effectiveness in driving alignment across teams with diverse incentives and perspectives.
• Clear communication skills, capable of explaining complex technical trade-offs to engineers, executives, and cross-functional partners.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous environments and making durable technical decisions with incomplete information.

Nice to have

• Experience in identity, authentication, authorization, secrets management, enterprise security, or trust-oriented product domains.
• Experience building large-scale event-driven or multi-region distributed systems in cloud environments.
• Experience building cross-platform applications or shared platform architectures at scale.
• Experience with developer platforms, internal engineering frameworks, CI/CD systems, or large-scale infrastructure modernization.
• Experience integrating LLMs or AI-assisted workflows into customer-facing SaaS applications.
• Experience with endpoint trust, browser or extension security, enterprise administration workflows, or device posture systems.
• Experience mentoring engineers and improving engineering practices across organizations.

Skills & tools

• Distributed Systems
• Cloud Infrastructure
• API Design
• Data Platforms
• AI/ML Integration
• Security Principles
• Privacy by Design
• Event-Driven Architectures
• Microservices
• Cross-Platform Development

Practical notes

• This role is for an existing vacancy.
• Compensation includes base salary, equity grant, and participation in benefits programs (health, dental, 401k/RRSP, etc.), paid time off, and incentive programs where applicable.
• 1Password values collaboration, transparent communication, receptiveness to feedback, and core values: keep it simple, lead with honesty, and put people first.
• The work is demanding, with a fast pace and a focus on excellence. Adaptability, curiosity, and a drive to deliver results are essential.