Principal Engineer, AI BU

NetApp; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 196,000 - 293,000; Full time

Job summary

NetApp is seeking a Principal Engineer in its AI BU to lead cross‑team architecture and drive technical direction across storage, data, and AI initiatives. You are the engineer other teams turn to for the hardest design and architecture problems, while remaining hands‑on.

You will mentor engineers, author design docs, drive architectural coherence, and partner with leadership to translate business priorities into technical roadmaps.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience.
• Technical lead or architect on multi-team initiatives.
• Experience with cloud-native architectures on AWS/Azure/Google Cloud.
• Hands-on with distributed storage systems.
• Ability to build consensus and influence direction.
• Strong system design ownership for highly available, low-latency services.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for design docs and RFCs.
• Experience with data processing, analytics, and AI/ML systems.
• Mentoring engineers and raising technical quality across teams.
• CI/CD infrastructure experience for large-scale deployments.

Responsibilities

• Serve as technical architect or tech lead across major AI BU initiatives, owning end-to-end design.
• Set technical direction and design standards across engineering teams.
• Drive cross-cutting technical problems to solutions, authoring RFCs.
• Stay hands-on: write production code and review high-stakes designs.
• Translate business priorities into technical roadmaps and architecture decisions.
• Mentor engineers and raise technical bar without formal management authority.
• Identify risks and drive resolution before it becomes a fire.
• Represent AI BU engineering in cross-functional reviews with executives.
• Champion best practices in system design, testing, observability, and ops.

Skills

12+ years experience

Technical lead or architect

Cloud-native architectures

Distributed Storage Systems

Influence without formal authority

System design ownership

CI/CD for large-scale deployments

AI/ML data processing

Leadership without management

Communication to engineers/executives

Tools

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Job description

Own Every Moment at NetApp

At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.

Job Summary

As a Principal Engineer in NetApp's AI BU, you are a senior technical authority — architecting and tech‑leading complex, cross‑team initiatives and setting technical direction for products at the intersection of storage, data, and AI. You are the engineer other teams turn to for the hardest design and architecture problems, and you drive outcomes through technical depth and influence rather than management authority, retaining a hands‑on, individual‑contributor focus.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as technical architect and/or tech lead across one or more major AI BU initiatives, owning system design end-to-end.
• Set technical direction and design standards across multiple engineering teams, ensuring architectural coherence.
• Drive ambiguous, cross-cutting technical problems to well-reasoned solutions, authoring design docs/RFCs that align stakeholders across teams.
• Stay hands‑on: write production code, review the highest stakes designs and PRs, and personally unblock the hardest engineering problems.
• Partner with engineering and product leadership to translate business priorities into technical roadmaps and architecture decisions.
• Mentor and raise the technical bar for engineers across teams, without formal management authority over them.
• Identify systemic technical risk — architectural debt, scalability bottlenecks, reliability gaps — and drive it to resolution before it becomes a team-level fire.
• Represent AI BU engineering in cross‑functional and executive technical reviews, articulating trade‑offs and recommendations.
• Champion best practices in system design, testing, observability, and operational excellence across the teams you influence.
• Evaluate and introduce new technologies, frameworks, and architectural patterns, balancing innovation with pragmatism.

Key Qualifications

• 12+ years of hands‑on software engineering experience, including designing and building large‑scale distributed systems.
• Demonstrated track record as technical lead or architect on multi‑team or org‑wide initiatives.
• Deep hands‑on experience with cloud‑native architectures on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Well versed in using agentic engineering using local and/or frontier models.
• Hands‑on experience with Distributed Storage Systems.
• Proven ability to build technical consensus and influence engineering direction across teams without formal authority.
• Strong system design skills, with direct ownership of architecture for highly available, low‑latency, large‑scale services.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills — able to author design docs/RFCs and present technical trade‑offs to engineers and executives alike.
• Experience with data processing, analytics, and AI/ML systems.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and raising the technical quality bar across teams.
• Prior experience building CI/CD infrastructure for large‑scale deployments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Domain expertise on knowledge graphs, semantics and data modeling.
• Hands‑on experience with Distributed Database Systems.
• Hands‑on experience with training and deploying AI models.
• Hands‑on experience with GPU workloads and accelerated computing infrastructure.

Compensation

The target salary range for this position is 196,350 - 292,600 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU's), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in‑office and/or in‑person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You’ll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won’t wait for the perfect moment—you’ll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That’s how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise‑grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.

If you’re ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one.

Submitting an Application

To ensure a streamlined and fair hiring process for all candidates, our team only reviews applications submitted through our company website. This practice allows us to track, assess, and respond to applicants efficiently. Emailing our employees, recruiters, or Human Resources personnel directly will not influence your application.

AI Disclosure

For select roles, some stages of our hiring process may use artificial intelligence tools to help evaluate applications and candidate selection. These tools support—rather than replace—human decision‑making.