Principal Engineer - Kubernetes Platform

Work180; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Atlassian is empowering its workforce to choose where they work—office, home, or a blend—while expanding opportunities to join teams where we have a legal entity. We seek a Principal Engineer with a Deep Engineer archetype in Kubernetes Platform to own complex, high-impact outcomes from problem definition to production.

You will shape architecture and guide technical direction across security, performance, and scalability.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the technical strategy for secure, low-latency compute infrastructure for AI agents and untrusted workloads.
• Lead architecture and implementation of isolation, scheduling, lifecycle management, networking, policy enforcement, observability, and control-plane capabilities.
• Own end-to-end outcomes for ambiguous, cross-team initiatives, from design and prioritisation to launch, adoption, and measurable operational results.
• Advance portable, cloud-native execution across GCP and AWS while balancing platform consistency with regional and workload needs.
• Champion operational excellence for a tier-0 platform: reliability, security, privacy, incident learning, performance, and cost efficiency.
• Improve the developer experience through self-service APIs, automation, paved paths, and clear platform contracts.
• Set direction through written proposals and thoughtful technical decisions; mentor engineers and help grow an inclusive, high-performing team.

Job description

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.

As a Principal Engineer with Deep Engineer archetype in Kubernetes Platform, you will own technically complex, high-impact outcomes from problem definition through production. You will bring deep expertise in agent infrastructure and distributed systems to shape the platform’s architecture and technical direction. You’ll make sound trade-offs across security, isolation, performance, scalability, portability, cost, and developer experience, while remaining close to the code and operational reality.

You will influence across teams and geographies, partner with product and engineering leaders, and raise the effectiveness of engineers through coaching, design leadership, and practical engineering standards. Success will be measured by sustained outcomes—not activity—including safer workloads, faster iteration, reliable services, and leverage across Atlassian.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the technical strategy for secure, low-latency compute infrastructure for AI agents and untrusted workloads.

• Lead architecture and implementation of isolation, scheduling, lifecycle management, networking, policy enforcement, observability, and control-plane capabilities.

• Own end-to-end outcomes for ambiguous, cross-team initiatives, from design and prioritisation to launch, adoption, and measurable operational results.

• Advance portable, cloud-native execution across GCP and AWS while balancing platform consistency with regional and workload needs.

• Champion operational excellence for a tier-0 platform: reliability, security, privacy, incident learning, performance, and cost efficiency.

• Improve the developer experience through self-service APIs, automation, paved paths, and clear platform contracts.

• Set direction through written proposals and thoughtful technical decisions; mentor engineers and help grow an inclusive, high-performing team.

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. To learn more, visit go.atlassian.com/perksandbenefits.

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. Simply inform our Recruitment team during your conversation with them.

To learn more about our culture and hiring process, visit go.atlassian.com/crh.

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.