Principal Software Development Engineer

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation. 
 

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

If you're passionate about engineering robust solutions for large-scale distributed software infrastructures—especially those spanning both control and data planes—this position offers end-to-end ownership of mission-critical components that power advanced networking capabilities, future-proof connectivity, and cutting-edge AI-driven solutions.

Why This Role is Unique:
Our SaaS is hybrid – running across public cloud and a global network of 50+ PoPs, delivering terabits of capacity and many thousands of devices installed in diverse infrastructure.

What You'll Do:

Be the Architect Behind driving key platform enhancements with resiliency and scale

• Drive reliability and resiliency as part of the platform evolution
• Drive re-architecture & scale of various key components of the platform

Own Roadmap of the platform

• Drive advancements in high-performance networking capabilities, ensuring the platform remains future-ready for evolving connectivity standards and global traffic demands.
• Scale and optimize essential control and data plane components to support seamless expansion and robust system reliability across diverse environments.
• Lead the development of innovative services that enhance operational efficiency and resource utilization in complex network architectures.
• Continuously reduce toil in the development lifecycle through comprehensive testing, intelligent automation, and strategic platform enhancements focused on resilient connectivity.

Leverage Data Science and AI/ML Capabilities

• Integrate data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence practices into the platform to optimize performance, predict traffic flows, and ensure seamless scalability and adaptability.
• Utilize advanced analytics and predictive modeling to develop algorithms for optimizing system efficiency and proactive fault management.
• Build and implement AI-driven intelligence for network automation and enhanced operational decision-making.

Collaborate & Mentor

• Work closely with SREs and QA to improve reliability and performance of the product.
• Mentor junior engineers, fostering a culture of SDLC thinking.

What Makes You a Great Fit?

• Extensive experience in IPv6 development and deployment across cloud-native platforms.
• Demonstrated expertise in re-architecting and scaling large-scale distributed systems—particularly in hybrid SaaS environments that integrate both cloud and global infrastructure.
• Proficiency with Kubernetes, Golang, and L3-L7 networking principles
• Strong commitment to deep observability, network analytics, and edge automation at scale.
• Demonstrated expertise in Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence applications within large-scale system architectures.

If you love creating a highly resilient platform that scales, automating everything, and working in a hybrid cloud + networking environment with a focus on AI/ML and cutting-edge data-driven technologies, we want to talk to you!

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination.  F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.