Principal Software Engineer - Backend

Autodesk; Portland (OR); On-site; USD 139,000 - 249,000; Full time

Job summary

Autodesk seeks a Principal Software Engineer - Backend to lead backend and distributed systems within EDM, driving architecture and standards for scalable enterprise services. This senior IC role emphasizes hands-on design, reliability, and cross-team impact across the COO-GET Engineering group.

You will guide API design, event-driven patterns, and observability while mentoring engineers and partnering with product and platform teams to deliver resilient solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with backend and distributed systems.
• Experience building enterprise platform services consumed by many teams.
• Python + AWS + API + backend services integration experience.
• Demonstrated expertise building and operating backend services and APIs in production environments at scale.
• Strong experience with distributed systems design, including asynchronous processing, messaging, eventual consistency, and fault tolerance.
• Deep hands-on experience with AWS and cloud-native architectures (compute, storage, messaging, IAM, observability, scaling patterns).
• Proven ownership of mission-critical systems, including design accountability, operational responsibility, and long-term maintainability.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: system design, service-level data modeling, API design, automated testing, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code.
• Track record of influencing architecture and engineering outcomes across multiple teams without formal authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide principal-level technical leadership across multiple backend and platform teams, shaping architecture and technical strategy beyond a single squad or service.
• Author and evolve critical backend systems and APIs, ensuring they meet long-term scalability, reliability, and extensibility goals.
• Lead design of distributed, event-driven systems, addressing consistency, ordering, failure handling, replay, idempotency, rate limiting, and backpressure.
• Establish and driveservice and API standards across domains, including schema design, versioning strategies, backward compatibility, and consumer experience.
• Act as a technical decision-maker for cross-team initiatives; evaluate tradeoffs and make durable architectural choices aligned with business priorities.
• Drive operational excellence across systems you influence: observability, alerting strategy, incident response, post-incident learning, and systemic remediation.
• Introduce and reinforce engineering best practices for design reviews, code quality, testing, CI/CD, and production readiness across multiple teams.
• Mentor senior engineers and emerging technical leaders; raise the bar through influence, example, and coaching rather than direct management.
• Partner deeply with product, data, and platform leaders to translate ambiguous business problems into clear, actionable technical solutions.
• Remain hands-on where impact is highest: complex system design, critical implementations, architectural refactors, and high-severity incident resolution.

Skills

Backend depth

Distributed systems

Python

AWS

API design

CI/CD

Observability

Infrastructure as Code

Communication skills

System ownership

Architecture influence

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS

Tools

Kafka

Kinesis

Snowflake

Job description

Job Requisition ID 26WD97363

Position Overview

We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer - Backend to join Autodesk’s Enterprise Data Management (EDM) organization within the COO-GET Engineering group. This is a senior individual contributor role operating at the Principal (P4) level, expected to drive technology direction for large, complex, and business-critical backend and distributed systems.

This role is anchored in backend software engineering excellence: designing, building, and evolving scalable services, APIs, and event-driven systems that operate at enterprise scale. As a Principal Engineer, you will work with high autonomy and ambiguity, shape long-term architecture, and influence multiple teams and domains. Familiarity with data engineering concepts is valuable, but backend systems, service design, and distributed systems are the core competencies.

You will function as a technical authority and force multiplier—guiding design decisions, setting standards, and ensuring Autodesk’s core data services are reliable, resilient, and evolvable over time.

Responsibilities

• Provideprincipal-level technical leadershipacross multiple backend and platform teams, shaping architecture and technical strategy beyond a single squad or service
• Author and evolvecritical backend systems and APIs, ensuring they meet long-term scalability, reliability, and extensibility goals
• Lead design ofdistributed, event-driven systems, addressing consistency, ordering, failure handling, replay, idempotency, rate limiting, and backpressure
• Establish and driveservice and API standardsacross domains, including schema design, versioning strategies, backward compatibility, and consumer experience
• Act as a technical decision-maker for cross-team initiatives; evaluate tradeoffs and make durable architectural choices aligned with business priorities
• Driveoperational excellenceacross systems youinfluence:observability, alerting strategy, incident response, post-incident learning, and systemic remediation
• Introduce and reinforceengineering best practicesfor design reviews, code quality, testing, CI/CD, and production readiness across multiple teams
• Mentor senior engineers and emerging technicalleaders;raise the bar through influence, example, and coaching rather than direct management
• Partner deeply with product, data, and platform leaders to translate ambiguous business problems into clear, actionable technical solutions
• Remain hands-on where impact is highest: complex system design, critical implementations, architectural refactors, and high-severity incident resolution

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s orMaster’s degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant depth in backend and distributed systems
• Experience buildingenterprise platform services consumed by many internal and/or external teams.
• Python + AWS + API + backend services integration experience
• Demonstratedexpertisebuilding and operatingbackend services and APIsin production environments at scale
• Strong experience withdistributed systems design, including asynchronous processing, messaging, eventual consistency, and fault tolerance
• Deep hands-on experience withAWSand cloud-native architectures (compute, storage, messaging, IAM, observability, scaling patterns)
• Proven ownership ofmission-critical systems, including design accountability, operational responsibility, and long-term maintainability
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: system design, service-level data modeling, API design, automated testing, CI/CD, andinfrastructure ascode
• Track recordof influencing architecture and engineering outcomesacross multiple teamswithout formal authority
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity withdata engineering or data platform ecosystems(e.g., streaming pipelines, data warehouses such as Snowflake) as a producer or advanced consumer of data services
• Experience withevent streaming and messaging platforms(e.g., Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalents)
• Background in domains such asmaster data management, identity resolution, data enrichment, or data quality
• Experience integrating backend services with analytics, search/indexing, or ML/AI platforms
• Prior experienceoperatingin large, complex organizations where systems span multiple teams, regions, and business units

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software - from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk - it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

Benefits

From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/

Salary transparency

Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $139,000 and $249,260. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Employment Opportunity

At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.

Belonging

We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/global-belonging

In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification

This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.