Principal Engineer — HPC & Distributed DB Architect (C++)

Circana; United States; Hybrid; USD 225,000 - 275,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Bonus eligible

Healthcare benefits

401(k) plan

Hybrid work arrangement

Job summary

Circana, a leading provider of data solutions, seeks Principal Engineers to drive the design and execution of our massively parallel processing (MPP) database engine. This role powers real-time retail analytics across 22+ countries and millions of queries daily.

You will architect core components, write highly optimized C++ code, and optimize for vectorization and ultra-low latency networking. This hybrid Chicago-area position offers strong compensation and bonus potential.

Qualifications

• 4+ years Computer Science degree; Masters in HPC/Big Data preferred for senior roles.
• 12+ years production C++ experience with modern standards (C++17/20/23).
• Expertise in MPI + OpenMP distributed programming; memory optimization.
• Strong debugging, performance tuning, and cross-team collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Architect and design the distributed database kernel and query execution.
• Develop high-performance backend code in modern C++ for HPC environments.
• Design and implement ultra-low latency, scalable cluster communications.
• Optimize vectorization and memory locality across large data sets.
• Lead peer reviews, mentor engineers, and resolve performance bottlenecks.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to extend platform capabilities.

Skills

Modern C++

MPI / OpenMP

Memory & performance debugging

Cross-team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's in CS or related

Masters in HPC / Big Data

Tools

Valgrind / Profilers

Vector intrinsics

RDMA / DPDK

Job description

Circana, a leading provider of data solutions, seeks Principal Engineers to drive the design and execution of our massively parallel processing (MPP) database engine. This role powers real-time retail analytics across 22+ countries and millions of queries daily.

You will architect core components, write highly optimized C++ code, and optimize for vectorization and ultra-low latency networking. This hybrid Chicago-area position offers strong compensation and bonus potential.