Principal Software Engineer

NetApp; Baltimore (MD); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 372,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Life Insurance

Retirement or Pension Plans

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Performance‑Based Incentives

Employee stock purchase plan

Restricted stocks (RSU’s)

Job summary

NetApp seeks a Principal Engineer in its Cloud Storage organization to lead the most challenging projects across AWS, Azure, and GCP.

You will architect scalable cloud‑native solutions, decompose complex problems, and ensure performance, reliability, and security while guiding engineering best practices and cross‑functional collaboration.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software development.
• 7+ years hands‑on with fault‑tolerant, scalable cloud architectures on at least one hyperscaler.

Responsibilities

• Provide end-to-end architecture on major initiatives.
• Design distributed cloud‑native products and scale them to production.
• Influence technical direction through reviews and implementation.

Skills

Cloud architectures

Service‑oriented architecture

Cloud‑native services

Architecture design

Stakeholder communication

Node.js/Python/Java/Go/Rust

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering

Master's degree in engineering/software

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

CloudFormation

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. Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you’ll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you’re ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins. Join teams that innovate to elevate, drive results, and excel together across every function.

Job Summary

• NetApp is uniquely placed in the industry partnering with major hyper scalers (AWS, GCP and Azure) which adds a new challenge for Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) driving innovation in the space of Cloud Fundamentals. Cloud Storage team is embarking on a new charter to address these challenges for Cloud native applications, of simplifying customer operations and being a key differentiator. Bring in your experience and expertise for the new frontier, to build best in class SaaS applications, woven with architecture and design that are deployed across multiple hyper scalers. If you are someone who enjoys working on challenging system problems covering different areas of the tech stack, this might be the right opportunity for you!

As a Principal Engineer in NetApp’s Cloud Storage organization, you will lead and execute our most challenging and complex projects. You will have an opportunity to work on AWS, Azure and GCP and use cutting edge technology to provide innovative solutions. You will be responsible for system architecture, decomposing complex problems into simple solutions, understanding system interdependencies and limitations, cloud architectures, performance, scalability, bringing engineering best practices, and testing methods to the team.

Job Requirements

• Experience Requirements
  • 15+ years in software development.
  • 7+ years hands‑on with fault‑tolerant, highly scalable cloud architectures, including service‑oriented and cloud‑native services (FaaS, PaaS) on at least one hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

Required Qualifications

• Ability to provide end to end architecture on major initiatives.
• Design distributed systems, cloud‑native products and scaled them to production.
• Proactive and self‑driven, with strong technical judgment and influential skills.
• Expertise in providing detailed architecture and set technical direction while contributing to implementation, design and code reviews.
• Make high‑quality technical decisions under ambiguity, trading off performance, maintainability, cost, and time‑to‑market, and choosing a path the team can execute.
• Strong experience in one or more of Node.js, Python, Java, Go, or Rust. Front‑end experience (TypeScript, React or Angular) is a plus.
• Work effectively across engineering, product, and leadership.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to effectively engage with customers, stakeholders, and the engineering community.

Preferred Qualifications

• Preference for experience in designing data migration systems & storage platforms.
• Preference for experience with filesystems, or file/cloud storage protocols. Experience in NFS/SMB/iSCSI protocols.
• Built developer‑facing products, APIs, or SDKs used by external customers at scale.
• Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Built a new product end‑to‑end inside a large company.
• Prior experience as a principal engineer or technical lead in a high‑performance engineering organization.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in technical area of study: engineering disciplines
• Master's degree in technical field such as engineering, software development, preferred with less additional experience stated above

Compensation:

The target salary range for this position is $220,000-372,000. 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 (PTO), 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.

• Health Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Retirement or Pension Plans
• Paid Time Off (PTO)
• various Leave options
• Performance‑Based Incentives
• employee stock purchase plan
• restricted stocks (RSU’s)

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.

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.