Principal Engineer -Dev Platform

About the role

In this Principal Engineer role within the Developer Platform team, you will operate at a scope equivalent to an Engineering Director, owning the end to end lifecycle of critical platform products that power our engineering organization. You will be responsible for shaping and executing the technical strategy for the systems that define our Software Development Lifecycle, directly influencing how developers build, deploy, and observe software. A core part of your mission will be to enhance the global developer experience and remove productivity barriers across the company. You will focus relentlessly on optimizing the software delivery process, scaling our platforms and infrastructure to meet future demands, and integrating AI to amplify engineering capacity. This position requires you to balance long term platform vision with the immediate needs of engineering teams, ensuring that foundational tools remain robust and intuitive. You will act as a key technical leader, driving standards and best practices that ensure consistency and reliability across all engineering efforts.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Formulate and own the long term technical vision for the Developer Platform, concentrating on infrastructure foundations, CI/CD pipeline architecture, and end to end observability systems.
• Drive the strategic integration of AI and machine learning capabilities to streamline internal workflows, aiming to elevate overall company productivity through intelligent tooling.
• Conduct deep analysis of the current engineering landscape to uncover potential business opportunities or productivity gaps, and subsequently create a clear, actionable roadmap to resolve these challenges.
• Champion initiatives that enhance engineering speed and quality by identifying bottlenecks in the development lifecycle and architecting solutions that remove them.
• Partner closely with cross functional stakeholders to translate high level business objectives into concrete platform requirements and technical specifications.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to senior engineers, fostering a culture of excellence, ownership, and continuous improvement within the platform team.
• Evaluate and select technology stacks and tools, making informed decisions that balance innovation with stability, scalability, and operational simplicity.
• Define and enforce architectural standards and best practices to ensure platform components are secure, scalable, and maintainable over the long term.
• Collaborate with security and compliance teams to ensure that platform initiatives adhere to organizational policies and industry regulations.
• Act as a subject matter expert and thought leader, representing the Developer Platform in broader engineering discussions and strategic planning sessions.
• Measure the impact of platform investments through key metrics and use data to continuously iterate on improvements and refine the developer experience.
• Lead complex, cross functional initiatives that require deep technical expertise and the ability to navigate ambiguous, high impact problems.
• Mentor and guide other engineers, helping to grow the overall technical capability and platform literacy across the organization.
• Ensure that all platform deliverables are aligned with business outcomes, providing clear rationale and justification for technical investments.

Requirements

• Bring a minimum of 18 years of hands on experience in Software Engineering, with a demonstrated focus on Developer Platforms, Infrastructure, or Core Tools that power large scale engineering organizations.
• Demonstrate a proven track record of functioning at a strategic level, performing duties similar to those of an Engineering Director who sets vision and drives execution.
• Show deep expertise in at least one general purpose programming language such as Go, Java, C/C++, Scala, or Python, using it to build scalable and maintainable systems.
• Exhibit a strong history of architecting and scaling highly available, fault tolerant platforms that can withstand significant load and complexity.
• Highlight experience in applying AI and machine learning techniques to enhance software development processes, automate tasks, and improve tooling.
• Provide evidence of success in leading and influencing technical decisions without direct authority, relying on strong consensus building skills.
• Display a comprehensive understanding of modern software development practices, including version control, automated testing, and release engineering.
• Communicate effectively with both technical and non technical audiences, translating complex concepts into clear strategies and actionable plans.

Skills & tools

• Demonstrate proficiency in CI/CD methodologies and tools, ensuring that software changes can be reliably built, tested, and deployed.
• Show advanced knowledge of observability platforms and practices, including logging, metrics, and tracing to maintain system health.
• Bring expertise in cloud infrastructure and managed services, leveraging them to build resilient and cost effective platform solutions.
• Have a strong background in tooling and automation, constantly seeking ways to improve the efficiency of the engineering workflow.
• Apply experience with AI and ML integration within engineering workflows to develop intelligent assistants and automation frameworks.
• Exhibit strong leadership capabilities, including the ability to build consensus, communicate a compelling vision, and drive execution across diverse teams.

Practical notes

Rubrik is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or veteran status. If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact hr@rubrik.com.