Red Hat

Principal Software Engineer, Platform Lead

Raleigh Full time

About the Job

The UXE Platform team's mission is to provide core platforms, golden paths, operational integrity, and AI acceleration essential for creating and operating exceptional digital experiences across the product portfolio. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will play a pivotal role in achieving this mission by discovering and executing on AI tooling capabilities, helping to guide tactical decisions and drive strategic initiatives 

This role demands significant discovery work for complex efforts, translating strategic AI and platform objectives into actionable technical plans, and ensuring effective delegation and execution You will be instrumental in fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth through mentorship and training of peers, and you will facilitate collaboration by actively participating guilds and in team synchronization meetings. Your expertise will ensure the reliability, performance, and scalability of our core platform systems while actively contributing to the acceleration of AI integration within the organization
 

What You Will Do

  • Technical Advisement & Strategic Guidance: Provide expert technical leadership and advisement to the Director and broader leadership, offering critical insights to guide tactical decisions and ensure technical alignment with overall UXE Platform engineering objectives through the strategic integration and development of AI-powered solutions

  • Technical Discovery & Delegation: Lead and conduct in-depth technical discovery and analysis for complex platform initiatives, including AI enablement efforts (e.g., architectural discovery for services like the Customer Portal or Data Lake). Translate high-level strategic goals into concrete technical requirements, propose robust solutions, and effectively delegate implementation tasks to team members

  • Skill Development: Act as a lead mentor and coach for software engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, professional development, and the adoption of cutting-edge best practices within the team and across the organization. This involves offering guidance on career growth and readiness for opportunities

  • Operational Excellence & Reliability: Drive initiatives to improve operational efficiency, system reliability, and performance  by designing and implementing AI-powered solutions and automation within our core platform software

  • AI Platform Enablement: Contribute to the strategic enhancement of our core platforms with AI capabilities, supporting the integration and operationalization of AI/ML models, tools, and frameworks to accelerate AI adoption within UXE. This includes ensuring secure, compliant, and scalable AI component deployment, such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers with required CMDB Appcodes and robust authentication/authorization

  • Automation & Incident Management: Lead incident response efforts, conduct thorough root cause analysis, and identify opportunities to automate manual tasks and processes, thereby improving system stability, reducing errors, and minimizing operational toil

What You Will Bring

  • Experience: 13+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, with a strong focus on platform engineering, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or related infrastructure-focused roles

  • Leadership: Proven experience in a technical leadership role, demonstrating the ability to guide teams, provide technical direction, and influence architectural decisions

  • Cloud & Container Platforms: Deep understanding and extensive hands-on experience with major cloud platforms, specifically AWS and Openshift, including operational experience from both tactical and strategic viewpoints

  • Programming Proficiency: Strong proficiency in multiple programming languages. Experience with Python, NodeJS, and/or PHP is a significant plus.

  • Web Application & Request Stack Expertise: Extensive full-stack web application development experience and a clear understanding of the request stack, including caching headers, HTTP verbs, and common errors.

  • Operational Tooling: Strong knowledge of monitoring and alerting tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog) and experience with configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef)

  • Problem-Solving & Analytical Skills: Exceptional problem-solving, troubleshooting, and analytical skills, with a proven ability to navigate and resolve complex technical challenges in production environments.

  • Communication & Collaboration: Outstanding written and verbal communication skills to articulate complex technical and architectural concepts to diverse audiences, from engineers to leadership, and foster effective collaboration.

  • System Design: Passion for designing, building, and operating highly reliable, scalable, and secure distributed systems

  • Demonstrate proficiency in utilizing LLMs (e.g., Google Gemini), as relevant, for tasks such as brainstorming solutions, deep research, summarizing technical documentation, drafting communications, summarizing complex technical information, and enhancing problem-solving efficiency across the development lifecycle

  • Explore and experiment with emerging AI technologies relevant to software development, proactively identifying opportunities to incorporate new AI capabilities into existing workflows and tooling

  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for AI integration within the software development lifecycle, driving continuous improvement and innovation in engineering practices, share use cases for successful experiments with stakeholders for broader use

The following are considered a plus:

  • Akamai Experience: Direct experience with Akamai, including Web Application Firewall (WAF) rule management and content delivery network (CDN) configurations, is a strong plus.

  • AI/ML Familiarity: Familiarity with AI/ML concepts, data pipelines for AI, and model operationalization (MLOps).

  • Guild Involvement: Previous experience in founding, leading, or significantly contributing to technical guilds.

 #LI-EK1

The salary range for this position is $148,540.00 - $245,050.00. Actual offer will be based on your qualifications.

Pay Transparency

Red Hat determines compensation based on several factors including but not limited to job location, experience, applicable skills and training, external market value, and internal pay equity. Annual salary is one component of Red Hat’s compensation package. This position may also be eligible for bonus, commission, and/or equity. For positions with Remote-US locations, the actual salary range for the position may differ based on location but will be commensurate with job duties and relevant work experience. 

About Red Hat

Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Spread across 40+ countries, our associates work flexibly across work environments, from in-office, to office-flex, to fully remote, depending on the requirements of their role. Red Hatters are encouraged to bring their best ideas, no matter their title or tenure. We're a leader in open source because of our open and inclusive environment. We hire creative, passionate people ready to contribute their ideas, help solve complex problems, and make an impact.

Benefits
●    Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
●    Flexible Spending Account - healthcare and dependent care
●    Health Savings Account - high deductible medical plan
●    Retirement 401(k) with employer match
●    Paid time off and holidays
●    Paid parental leave plans for all new parents
●    Leave benefits including disability, paid family medical leave, and paid military leave
●    Additional benefits including employee stock purchase plan, family planning reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, transportation expense account, employee assistance program, and more! 

Note: These benefits are only applicable to full time, permanent associates at Red Hat located in the United States. 

Inclusion at Red Hat
Red Hat’s culture is built on the open source principles of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion, where the best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone. When this is realized, it empowers people from different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to come together to share ideas, challenge the status quo, and drive innovation. Our aspiration is that everyone experiences this culture with equal opportunity and access, and that all voices are not only heard but also celebrated. We hope you will join our celebration, and we welcome and encourage applicants from all the beautiful dimensions that compose our global village.

Equal Opportunity Policy (EEO)
Red Hat is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We review applications for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, veteran status, genetic information, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, or any other basis prohibited by law.


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