Principal Software Engineer: AI & Systems Strategy

blueorigin; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 231,000 - 323,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Medical, dental, vision benefits

401(k) with match

Paid time off and holidays

Education support program

Job summary

Blue Origin in Seattle seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead the DESA team's technical strategy for New Glenn software and systems. You will own architecture, guide design and delivery, and collaborate with enterprise tech to enable safe, scalable spaceflight software.

The role emphasizes mentoring engineers, shaping the roadmap, applying AI to improve user experiences and development efficiency, and presenting strategies to senior leadership.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software experience.
• 7+ years building distributed backend systems on AWS.
• Typed and untyped languages experience (Java/C++/C#/Python/JS).
• Strong written and verbal communication; lead presentations to leadership.
• Experience mentoring engineers in teams.
• U.S. citizenship or eligible work status.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical strategy across design, test, systems engineering, and flight operations.
• Present complex strategies to senior leadership, including VP level.
• Collaborate to architect and execute the technical roadmap.
• Apply AI to improve user experiences and development efficiency.
• Promote CI/CD, modular architectures, and robust testing.
• Maintain high availability and monitor systems with alarms.
• Lead design reviews and mentor developers up to Senior SDE.

Skills

Distributed backend systems

AWS exposure

Typed languages (Java, C++, C#)

Untyped languages (Python, JavaScript)

Executive communication

Mentoring engineers

Problem solving in unfamiliar domains

Independent work

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related discipline

Tools

AWS

DynamoDB

RDS

SQS

SNS

React

Java

DataBricks

GraphQL

REST APIs

Job description

Blue Origin in Seattle seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead the DESA team's technical strategy for New Glenn software and systems. You will own architecture, guide design and delivery, and collaborate with enterprise tech to enable safe, scalable spaceflight software.

The role emphasizes mentoring engineers, shaping the roadmap, applying AI to improve user experiences and development efficiency, and presenting strategies to senior leadership.