Principal Software Engineer (K8/CNCF)

Staffing Science; United States; Remote; USD 170,000 - 720,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading staffing company seeks a Principal Software Engineer to shape the architectural direction of their cloud-native products. This hands-on role requires expertise in Kubernetes and CNCF projects, emphasizing a focus on technical excellence while mentoring engineers. You will architect distributed systems and drive innovation in cloud-native technology.

Benefits

Vision insurance

Medical insurance

401(k)

Tuition assistance

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in cloud-native and Kubernetes-focused environments.
• 5+ years of hands-on Kubernetes experience.
• Proven experience contributing to and maintaining CNCF projects.

Responsibilities

• Architect and design complex distributed systems built on Kubernetes.
• Own end-to-end delivery of major new capabilities across open-source and commercial offerings.
• Mentor and coach senior engineers.

Skills

Golang

Kubernetes

CNCF projects

cloud-native architecture patterns

distributed systems

mentoring

communication

Job description

Direct message the job poster from Staffing Science

Must be a US Citizen or green card holder, and must be a K8 expert who has contributed and maintained CNCF projects!

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to lead the architectural evolution and technical direction of our products and open-source projects. This is a senior leadership role for engineers who are true Kubernetes experts, have contributed to and maintained CNCF projects, and want to drive innovation in the cloud-native space.

You will take a hands-on role in owning product architecture, design, and delivery across open-source and commercial offerings, with significant influence on our future roadmap.

This is not a "management track" role — this is for an engineer who wants to stay close to the code and architecture while collaborating with engineering leadership and mentoring senior and mid-level engineers.

Responsibilities

• Architect and design complex distributed systems built on Kubernetes, driving both technical vision and hands-on implementation.
• Own end-to-end delivery of major new capabilities across both open-source and commercial offerings — from ideation to architecture, development, release, and ongoing support.
• Lead the evolution of core components and architectural frameworks of Loft’s products.
• Deeply contribute to and help maintain CNCF and Kubernetes ecosystem projects; ensure tight alignment between our products and the broader cloud-native ecosystem.
• Mentor and coach senior engineers, helping raise the technical bar for the entire engineering team.
• Actively engage with open-source and enterprise users to understand challenges and drive product improvements.
• Write highly performant, well-tested Golang code.
• Contribute to open-source projects, community discussions, and technical documentation.
• Collaborate with product, leadership, and community stakeholders to shape technical direction and product roadmap.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant time spent in cloud-native and Kubernetes-focused environments.
• 5+ years of hands-on Kubernetes experience (controllers, CRDs, API extensions, scheduling, networking, security).
• Proven experience contributing to and maintaining CNCF projects — not just consuming them. Strong familiarity with upstream processes and community best practices.
• Deep understanding of Kubernetes internals and cloud-native architecture patterns.
• Expertise in Golang development for high-scale distributed systems.
• Proven track record of owning product architecture and driving complex technical projects to production.
• Experience operating and maintaining Kubernetes platforms in production.
• Deep understanding of cloud-native developer tooling and container ecosystem.
• Ability to drive technical strategy while writing production-quality code.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across distributed teams and with open-source communities.
• Passion for mentoring and developing engineering talent.

Preferred

• Experience with Kubernetes multi-tenancy, virtualization, and performance tuning.
• Deep experience with virtual Kubernetes clusters, cloud-native security, and API extensibility.
• Experience driving large-scale open-source community engagement and adoption.
• Prior experience working in fast-paced startup environments or open-source-first companies.

Why Join Loft Labs?

• Principal Engineer role with huge ownership opportunities — architect the future of Kubernetes virtualization and developer experience.
• Work on open-source at scale —Millions of downloads, used by some of the biggest companies in the world.
• Collaborate with top Kubernetes and CNCF contributors.
• Competitive salary & benefits.
• Remote-first, flexible work culture.
• Fast, low-bureaucracy environment where your impact will be felt immediately.
• Join an elite team of cloud-native experts and help shape the future of Kubernetes tooling.

Culture & Values

• Technical Excellence — we build for engineers; quality matters.
• Customer Obsession — enterprise-grade usability and support.
• Impressive Speed — from community feedback to shipped code.
• Bold Innovation — challenge the status quo.
• Open Source & Open Mind — contributions and collaboration drive everything we do.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Industries

  Staffing and Recruiting

Referrals increase your chances of interviewing at Staffing Science by 2x

Inferred from the description for this job

Vision insurance

Medical insurance

401(k)

Tuition assistance

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