Principal Software Engineer (Autonomy Services)

Caterpillar Brazil; Irving (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision benefits

Paid time off

401(k) savings plan

Health Savings Account (HSA)

Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)

Career Development

Incentive bonus

Disability benefits

Life Insurance

Parental leave

Job summary

Caterpillar is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead architecture and integration strategies for Physical AI services, digital twin integration, and cloud-native backend platforms. The role focuses on building scalable microservices and APIs using Java, Spring Boot, and Python, with emphasis on REST, gRPC, and event-driven patterns.

You will mentor engineers, drive standards across teams, and ensure secure, high-performance solutions with strong observability.

Qualifications

• Strong experience building backend microservices and APIs (REST, gRPC, event-driven) for autonomy or real-time systems.
• Experience in autonomy systems, robotics, simulation, or real-time control platforms.
• Expertise in cloud-native architectures, service contracts, and integration patterns.
• Strong backend development using Java or Python for APIs, orchestration, and data processing.
• Deep understanding of design patterns and high-reliability systems (observability, retries, idempotency).

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to define architecture and integration strategies for Physical AI services, digital twin integration, simulation data exchange, and cloud-native backend platforms.
• Build scalable microservices and APIs, establish engineering standards and drive platform consistency across teams.
• Define and drive architecture for backend microservices and APIs (Java, Spring Boot, Python) supporting integration, data exchange, and platform services.
• Lead design and delivery of scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud-native services and integration adapters.
• Establish and enforce API standards, service contracts, and integration patterns (REST, gRPC, event-driven) across distributed systems.
• Provide technical leadership on complex system design, service scalability, and integration challenges.
• Review architecture, designs, code, APIs, and data contracts to ensure reliability, performance, security, observability, and maintainability.
• Drive engineering excellence across architecture, testing, CI/CD, observability, and operational readiness.
• Mentor engineers and elevate team capability in microservices design, API development, and backend engineering best practices.
• Guide teams in building robust integration services, adapter layers, and artifact/data exchange workflows.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define API interfaces, integration contracts, and platform service boundaries.
• Identify and drive platform simplification, reuse, and organizational efficiency improvements.

Skills

Backend architecture

API design

Java

Python

Spring Boot

REST, gRPC

Cloud-native

Observability

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Spring Boot

Java

Python

REST

gRPC

Job description

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to lead architecture and integration strategies for Physical AI services, digital twin integration, simulation data exchange, and cloud-native backend platforms.

What You Will Do

• Provide technical leadership to define architecture and integration strategies for Physical AI services, digital twin integration, simulation data exchange, and cloud-native backend platforms.
• Build scalable microservices and APIs, establish engineering standards and drive platform consistency across teams.
• Define and drive architecture for backend microservices and APIs (Java, Spring Boot, Python) supporting integration, data exchange, and platform services.
• Lead design and delivery of scalable, secure, and high-performance cloud-native services and integration adapters.
• Establish and enforce API standards, service contracts, and integration patterns (REST, gRPC, event-driven) across distributed systems.
• Provide technical leadership on complex system design, service scalability, and integration challenges.
• Review architecture, designs, code, APIs, and data contracts to ensure reliability, performance, security, observability, and maintainability.
• Drive engineering excellence across architecture, testing, CI/CD, observability, and operational readiness.
• Mentor engineers and elevate team capability in microservices design, API development, and backend engineering best practices.
• Guide teams in building robust integration services, adapter layers, and artifact/data exchange workflows.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define API interfaces, integration contracts, and platform service boundaries.
• Identify and drive platform simplification, reuse, and organizational efficiency improvements.

Qualifications

• Strong experience building backend microservices and APIs (REST, gRPC, event-driven) for autonomy or real-time systems.
• Experience in autonomy systems, robotics, simulation, or real-time control platforms.
• Expertise in designing scalable cloud-native architectures, service contracts, and integration patterns.
• Strong backend development using Java or Python for APIs, orchestration, and data processing.
• Deep understanding and application of design patterns.
• Experience with AI-assisted/agentic development workflows and validating AI-generated code.
• Understanding of high-reliability systems (async workflows, retries, idempotency, observability).

Nice to Have

• Experience building production AI agents using Python.
• Experience with agent orchestration frameworks such as LangChain or LangGraph.
• Experience integrating LLMs with external tools, APIs, databases, and retrieval systems.
• Experience designing evals, guardrails, and monitoring for agent reliability.
• Multi‑agent workflow design and memory/context management.
• Prompt optimization, latency reduction, and cost control.
• MLOps or model deployment experience.

Location & Employment

This position requires the candidate to be based in Irving, TX (Dallas). Domestic relocation assistance and visa sponsorship are available. The role is onsite five days a week.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• Paid time off (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.).
• 401(k) savings plan.
• Health Savings Account (HSA).
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs).
• Health Lifestyle Programs.
• Employee Assistance Program.
• Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts.
• Career Development.
• Incentive bonus.
• Disability benefits, Life Insurance.
• Parental leave, Adoption benefits.
• Tuition Reimbursement.

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We encourage qualified applicants of any age to apply. Any offer of employment is conditioned upon successful completion of a drug screen.