Lead Engineer

UNAVAILABLE; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 212,000 - 343,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

RSUs

Comprehensive health benefits

Job summary

DocuSign seeks a Principal Engineer to define architectural direction for AI-powered marketing, sales, and commerce platforms. You will shape how data and AI enable personalized, compliant go-to-market experiences across channels, guiding senior leaders and teams with long-term technical vision.

The role emphasizes leadership in AI, data platforms, and large-scale distributed systems, with a focus on scalable, secure, and high-impact solutions across GTM workflows.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering experience with data-intensive platforms.
• Experience designing distributed architectures used by multiple teams and mission-critical functions.
• Experience with AI-adjacent systems, data platforms, automation, or model integration at scale.

Responsibilities

• Define and steward long-term architecture for marketing, sales, and commerce platforms including AI tech.
• Lead design and adoption of AI-enabled capabilities and data pipelines.
• Own end-to-end architecture of distributed business systems for scalability and security.

Skills

15+ years experience in software eng

Distributed architectures

AI-adjacent systems

Microservices

Java/Kotlin/Python/Node.js

SQL/NoSQL databases

Cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

Spark

Hive

AWS/Azure/GCP

Job description

Company Overview

Docusign brings agreements to life. Over 1.5 million customers and more than a billion people in over 180 countries use Docusign solutions to accelerate the process of doing business and simplify people’s lives. With intelligent agreement management, Docusign unleashes business-critical data that is trapped inside of documents. Until now, these were disconnected from business systems of record, costing businesses time, money, and opportunity. Using Docusign’s Intelligent Agreement Management platform, companies can create, commit, and manage agreements with solutions created by the #1 company in e-signature and contract lifecycle management (CLM).

What you'll do

Join Docusign as a Principal Engineer in the Enterprise Application Technology Engineering team, you will serve as the highest-level individual contributor defining the architectural and technical direction of our AI-powered marketing, sales, and commerce platforms. This role is built for a senior technologist with strong executive presence who can operate at both strategic and hands-on levels, shaping how AI, data, and scalable systems power intelligent, personalized, and compliant go-to-market experiences across channels.

You will influence engineering, product, marketing, sales, and analytics leaders by translating business strategy into durable technical architectures and long-term platforms. Your work will directly impact how Docusign drives growth, engagement, and operational efficiency through modern, data-driven marketing technology.

As a Principal Engineer, you will own and evolve the long-term technical vision for marketing, sales, and downstream commerce technology, with a strong emphasis on AI enablement, data platforms, and large-scale distributed systems with deep marketing technology domain expertise. You will act as a trusted technical advisor to senior leaders, lead architectural design across teams, and remain deeply involved in solving the most complex technical challenges.

You will guide teams through architectural decisions, establish engineering standards, and mentor senior engineers, while continuously identifying opportunities where AI, automation, and advanced data, analytics, systems can unlock step-function improvements in customer experience and go-to-market effectiveness.

This position is an individual contributor role reporting to the VP, Applications Engineering.

Responsibility

• Define and steward the long-term, scaled, secure architecture and technical strategy for marketing, sales, commerce, and AI technology platforms, ensuring alignment with Docusign’s go-to-market objectives and future growth
• Lead the design and adoption of AI-enabled capabilities, including data pipelines, feature stores, model integration patterns, automation frameworks, and intelligent decisioning systems that power personalization and customer lifecycle journey orchestration
• Own and influence the end-to-end architecture of complex, distributed marketing, sales, and commerce business systems, emphasizing scalability, reliability, security, and extensibility to support high data volumes and rapid innovation
• Partner closely with senior engineering, product, marketing, sales, success, and analytics leaders to guide architectural decisions, communicate tradeoffs, and align technical direction with business priorities
• Provide technical leadership across the broader go-to-market ecosystem, helping teams understand technology specific to marketing domain, platform capabilities, constraints, and opportunities, and ensuring cohesive integration across systems and workflows
• Establish and uphold technical standards, design principles, and best practices across teams, driving consistency, quality, and operational rigor in how platforms are built and evolved
• Mentor senior and lead engineers, elevate technical decision-making across the organization, and model strong ownership, thoughtful design, and long-term architectural thinking
• Evaluate emerging technologies, AI methodologies, and architectural patterns, guiding responsible adoption to keep Docusign’s application technology ecosystem modern, flexible, and future-ready

Job Designation

Hybrid: Employee divides their time between in-office and remote work. Access to an office location is required. (Frequency: Minimum 2 days per week; may vary by team but will be weekly in-office expectation)

Positions at Docusign are assigned a job designation of either In Office, Hybrid or Remote and are specific to the role/job. Preferred job designations are not guaranteed when changing positions within Docusign. Docusign reserves the right to change a position's job designation depending on business needs and as permitted by local law.

What you bring

Basic

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
• 15+ years of experience in software engineering, marketing, sales, commerce technical domain knowledge, with deep expertise in building and operating large-scale, data-intensive platforms to scale for volume, velocity, variety of data, campaign events, lead generation
• Experience designing and evolving complex distributed architectures used by multiple teams and mission-critical business functions
• Experience in AI-adjacent systems, including data platforms, automation, model integration, or intelligent decisioning at scale
• Experience with microservices architectures, containerization, and orchestration technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes
• Experience in backend programming languages such as Java or Kotlin, Python, or Node.js
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases, and distributed data and streaming platforms such as Kafka, Spark, and Hive
• Cloud platform experience across AWS, Azure, or GCP

Preferred

• Experience applying AI and machine learning concepts to marketing, personalization, sales, success, or customer engagement use cases
• Strong understanding of data governance, privacy, and compliance frameworks, particularly in enterprise or regulated environments
• Experience operating within agile organizations while maintaining long-term architectural integrity
• A history of driving cross-team technical initiatives that materially improve platform scalability, reliability, or business impact
• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and guide alignment across organizations
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior technical and business leaders through clear architectural thinking and executive-level communication

Wage Transparency

Pay for this position is based on a number of factors including geographic location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Based on applicable legislation, the below details pay ranges in the following locations:

California: $212,100.00 - $342,650.00 base salary

This role is also eligible for the following:

• Bonus: Sales personnel are eligible for variable incentive pay dependent on their achievement of pre-established sales goals. Non-Sales roles are eligible for a company bonus plan, which is calculated as a percentage of eligible wages and dependent on company performance.
• Stock: This role is eligible to receive Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).

Global benefits provide options for the following:

• Paid Time Off: earned time off, as well as paid company holidays based on region
• Paid Parental Leave: take up to six months off with your child after birth, adoption or foster care placement
• Full Health Benefits Plans: options for 100% employer paid and minimum employee contribution health plans from day one of employment
• Retirement Plans: select retirement and pension programs with potential for employer contributions
• Learning and Development: options for coaching, online courses and education reimbursements
• Compassionate Care Leave: paid time off following the loss of a loved one and other life-changing events

Work Authorization Notice: Please note that we do not provide visa sponsorship or immigration support for this position. Applicants must already be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time, permanent basis without the need for current or future sponsorship.

Life at DocuSign

Working here

Docusign is committed to building trust and making the world more agreeable for our employees, customers and the communities in which we live and work. You can count on us to listen, be honest, and try our best to do what’s right, every day. At Docusign, everything is equal.

We each have a responsibility to ensure every team member has an equal opportunity to succeed, to be heard, to exchange ideas openly, to build lasting relationships, and to do the work of their life. Best of all, you will be able to feel deep pride in the work you do, because your contribution helps us make the world better than we found it. And for that, you’ll be loved by us, our customers, and the world in which we live.

Accommodation

Docusign is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need such an accommodation, or a religious accommodation, during the application process, please contact us at [e-mail].

If you experience any issues, concerns, or technical difficulties during the application process please get in touch with our Talent organization at [e-mail] for assistance.

Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice

States Not Eligible for Employment

This position is not eligible for employment in the following states: Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming.

EEO Statement

It's important to us that we build a talented team that is as diverse as our customers and where all employees feel a deep sense of belonging and thrive. We encourage great talent who bring a range of perspectives to apply for our open positions. Docusign is an Equal Opportunity Employer and makes hiring decisions based on experience, skill, aptitude and a can-do approach. We will not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, age, sex, religion, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, physical or mental disability, registered domestic partner status, caregiver status, marital status, veteran or military status, or any other legally protected category.

EEO Know Your Rights poster