Principal Software Engineer

NetApp; Virginia (IL); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 372,000; Full time

Job summary

NetApp is seeking a Principal Engineer for its Cloud Storage organization. You will lead the most challenging projects across AWS, Azure, and GCP, shaping system architecture, decomposing complex problems, and driving best practices for scalable cloud-native services.

The role emphasizes end-to-end architecture, performance and cost trade-offs, and cross‑functional collaboration with engineering, product, and leadership to deliver world-class SaaS applications.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software development.
• 7+ years hands-on with fault-tolerant, highly scalable cloud architectures, including service-oriented and cloud-native services on at least one hyperscaler.
• Ability to provide end-to-end architecture on major initiatives.
• Design distributed systems and cloud-native products and scale them to production.
• Proactive and self-driven, with strong technical judgment and influential skills.
• Strong experience across engineering, product, and leadership.
• Excellent communication with customers and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead and execute the organization's most challenging projects in cloud storage.
• Architect and decompose complex problems into simple solutions across multiple hyperscalers.
• Design distributed cloud-native products and scale them to production.
• Provide technical direction and lead implementation reviews.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, and leadership to drive initiatives.

Skills

End-to-end architecture

Distributed systems design

Cloud-native architectures

Node.js

Python

Java

Go

Rust

TypeScript

React

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field

Master's degree in engineering or software development

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

CloudFormation

AWS/Azure/GCP familiarity

Job description

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

• Preferenceforexperienceindesigningdatamigrationsystems&storageplatforms.
• Preferenceforexperiencewithfilesystems, or file/cloud storage protocols. ExperienceinNFS/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.
• Priorexperienceasaprincipalengineerortechnicalleadinahigh‑performanceengineeringorganization.

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. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.

We are all about helping customers turn challenges into business opportunity.

It startswithbringing new thinking to age-old problems,likehowtouse data most effectively to run better -butalsoto innovate.Wetailorourapproachtothecustomer's uniqueneeds with a combinationof freshthinkingandprovenapproaches.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designedto strengthen connection, collaboration, andculturefor all employees.

Thismeans that mostroles will have some level of in-office andorin‑person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetAppisfirmlycommittedtoEqualEmploymentOpportunity (EEO)andtocompliance with allfederal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orie