Senior Principal Backend Software Engineer

Atlassian India Llp; Bengaluru; Hybrid; INR 4,000,000 - 8,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and wellbeing resources

Paid volunteer days

Job summary

At Atlassian, we are seeking a Senior Principal Backend Software Engineer to join our Jira Data Management team in Bengaluru or remotely. You will shape enterprise-scale data movement, governance, and resiliency within Jira Cloud, driving strategy and architecture across multiple teams.

You will lead major architectural initiatives, mentor senior engineers, and help deliver reliable, scalable platform primitives required by enterprise customers in a distributed-first organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience – 12+ years of experience developing large scale distributed systems.
• 4+ years of experience providing architectural oversight and technical leadership.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical evolution and long-term architecture of Jira Data Management, shaping strategy for enterprise-scale data movement, governance, resiliency, and data health.
• Lead the largest architectural initiatives across Jira Platform, from strategy and milestones through delivery, adoption, and customer outcomes.
• Define and drive a 12-24 month roadmap for shared platform primitives, identify gaps, and make clear trade-offs on priorities.
• Raise standards for reliability, performance, observability, security, and operational excellence across systems handling critical enterprise data.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership via design reviews, deep investigations, incident reviews, and high-risk problem solving while mentoring Principal and senior engineers.

Skills

Distributed systems

Architecture leadership

Cloud platforms

Programming languages

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS

Tools

AWS

GCP

Job description

Senior Principal Engineer - Jira Platform Overview (Working at Atlassian)

Atlassians can choose where they work – whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two. That way, Atlassians have more control over supporting their family, personal goals, and other priorities. We can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity. Interviews and onboarding are conducted virtually, a part of being a distributed-first company.

We're looking for a Senior Principal Backend Software Engineer to join our team, passionately focused on delivering creative improvements for our engineering teams.

Future Org

"Jira Platform enables Jira to become the trusted, agent-native system of record and control plane for human and agent teamwork at enterprise scale." As a Senior Principal Engineer in this future organization, you will help turn this vision into reality. You will shape the platform capabilities, technical strategy, and engineering practices that enable Jira to become the system of record and control plane for the next generation of human and agent teamwork.

Three Forces Guiding Our Work

• AI TRANSFORMATION: Make Jira the agent-native system of record and control plane for human and agent teamwork, designing systems that enable people and AI agents to work together effectively.
• ENTERPRISE READINESS: Build the security, scale, resilience, and administrative capabilities required to earn the trust of the world's largest and most demanding enterprises as they move to the Cloud.
• EFFICIENCY: Create a platform with sound unit economics that accelerates developer productivity, supports a growing agentic workload, and delivers world-class reliability for Jira Cloud customers.

Future Team – Jira Data Management

Jira Data Management focuses on empowering users with effective control over the transfer and management of data within Jira Cloud. For enterprise customers, the capability to move and manage large volumes of data both within and outside their cloud site is essential for leveraging Atlassian's cloud offerings. We develop and support various data migration pathways for Jira products, facilitating transitions from Data Center to Cloud, Cloud to Cloud, and External to Cloud data migrations. Additionally, we offer data-shape management capabilities that power products like Site Optimizer for Jira. Our goal is to deliver scalable, seamless, and highly predictable data management solutions for Jira Cloud customers.

The JDM team comprises over 50 engineers, along with product managers and designers, dedicated to overcoming challenges that may hinder customers from fully utilizing our cloud offerings. Each feature we release has a direct impact on Atlassian's cloud revenue. We are actively focused on improving reliability at scale, performance, and features for diverse product use cases built on our services.

Currently, we are looking for individuals who are enthusiastic about tackling challenging tasks and who excel in a fast-paced environment. Our mission is high-profile, and we expect our team members to take initiative in driving and contributing to Atlassian's overarching objectives.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical evolution and long-term architecture of Jira Data Management, shaping strategy for enterprise-scale data movement, governance, resiliency, and data health.
• Lead the largest architectural initiatives across Jira Platform, from strategy and milestones through delivery, adoption, and customer outcomes.
• Define and drive a 12-24 month roadmap for shared platform primitives, identify gaps, and make clear trade-offs on priorities.
• Raise standards for reliability, performance, observability, security, and operational excellence across systems handling critical enterprise data.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership via design reviews, deep investigations, incident reviews, and high-risk problem solving while mentoring Principal and senior engineers.

Qualifications

• At Atlassian, we strive to design equitable, explainable, and competitive compensation programs. We follow consistent hiring practices and account for each candidate's skills, knowledge, and experience when setting base pay within the range. This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience – 12+ years of experience developing large scale distributed systems.
• 4+ years of experience providing architectural oversight and technical leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Proven experience at department-level: shaping technical direction across teams and influencing architecture beyond a single service.
• Track record of leading major architectural initiatives and turning multi-year strategy into incremental delivery and measurable outcomes.
• Extensive experience designing and building large-scale distributed systems, data streaming platforms and event-driven architecture.
• Broad knowledge of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and hands-on experience with public clouds (ideally AWS and/or GCP).
• Fluency in any modern object-oriented programming language (e.g., Java, Golang, Python, Javascript, go etc.) and in architecture patterns for distributed systems.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers, leading technical reviews, and improving engineering quality and productivity.
• Quick learner who excels in ambiguous environments.

Benefits & Perks

Atlassian offers a wide range of perks and benefits designed to support you, your family and to help you engage with your local community. Our offerings include health and wellbeing resources, paid volunteer days, and so much more.

About Atlassian

At Atlassian, we're motivated by a common goal: to unleash the potential of every team. Our software products help teams all over the planet and our solutions are designed for all types of work. Team collaboration through our tools makes what may be impossible alone, possible together. We believe that the unique contributions of all Atlassians create our success.

To ensure that our products and culture continue to incorporate everyone's perspectives and experience, we never discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, or marital, veteran, or disability status. All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines. To provide you the best experience, we can support with accommodations or adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process.

In line with local law, identity verification (which may include use of biometric data) is a condition of employment with Atlassian for employment fraud purposes.

Experience Level: Senior Level