Principal Software Engineer

Optum; Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi; Hybrid; INR 3,500,000 - 5,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Optum is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to define architecture and lead engineering direction for enterprise systems across teams. You will own system design, platform standards, and end-to-end software lifecycle to deliver scalable, secure solutions.

The role requires strong AI/ML understanding and distributed design expertise to drive cross-team decisions, improve reliability, and champion automation and rigorous engineering practices.

Qualifications

• Experience defining architecture for distributed, scalable systems.
• Ability to set engineering standards and platform components.
• Experience with cloud-native deployments and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Lead design of distributed, scalable systems and microservices.
• Act as technical authority for architecture across teams.
• Champion automation, CI/CD pipelines, and reliable deployments.
• Drive observability and production readiness through monitoring.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Microservices architecture

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Docker

Kubernetes

AI/ML concepts

Technical leadership

Security-minded engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Monitoring tools

Job description

Principal Software Engineer is a senior technical leader responsible for defining architecture, system design, and engineering direction across complex enterprise systems. This role drives cross-team technical decisions, platform standardization, and end-to-end software lifecycle ownership, ensuring scalable, secure, and reliable solutions. The role requires strong understanding of AI/ML concepts and their application in real-world systems, alongside deep expertise in software engineering fundamentals and distributed system design.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Architecture & Design
  • Lead design of distributed, scalable systems and microservices architectures
  • Define service boundaries, APIs, and integration patterns (event-driven, async)
• Technical Leadership
  • Act as technical authority for architecture and complex problem-solving
  • Influence engineering decisions across teams without formal authority
• Engineering Standards & Platforms
  • Establish reusable patterns, standards, and shared components
  • Drive adoption of modern engineering practices and automation-first mindset
• Cloud & Distributed Systems
  • Drive cloud-native solutions across AWS / Azure / GCP
  • Lead microservices, containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes), and platform engineering
• DevOps & Delivery Excellence
  • Lead CI/CD pipelines, release automation, and deployment reliability
  • Improve engineering productivity through standardised tooling and automation
• Reliability & Observability
  • Ensure production readiness via monitoring, logging, tracing, alerting
  • Drive diagnostics and operational excellence practices
• Decision-Making & Problem Solving
  • Make high-impact technical decisions under ambiguity
  • Balance scalability, reliability, security, and delivery trade-offs
• Comply with the terms and conditions of the employment contract, company policies and procedures, and any and all directives (such as, but not limited to, transfer and/or re-assignment to different work locations, change in teams and/or work shifts, policies in regards to flexibility of work benefits and/or work environment, alternative work arrangements, and other decisions that may arise due to the changing business environment). The Company may adopt, vary or rescind these policies and directives in its absolute discretion and without any limitation (implied or otherwise) on its ability to do so