Principal Software Engineer Lead — Cloud, Edge & SRE

Akamai Technologies; Reston, Cambridge (VA, MA); On-site; USD 169,000 - 305,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

401K

Paid time off

Parental leave

Employee assistance program

Job summary

Akamai Technologies is seeking a Principal Software Engineer Lead in Reston, VA to architect scalable distributed systems and drive engineering excellence. You will implement SRE-aligned practices, build deployment safety pipelines, and mentor engineers across teams.

You will influence architectural blueprints, guide tech choices, and lead postmortems while ensuring reliability in a globally distributed platform used for cloud, edge, and security services.

Qualifications

• Have 12 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree.
• Experience developing full-stack web applications, APIs, and microservices in Linux/Unix environments.
• Expertise in Python, JavaScript, SQL, Ruby or PHP.
• Familiar with CI/CD pipelines, containerization, automated testing, and revision control.
• Solid grounding in SRE principles, including SLI/SLO tracking and root-cause analysis.
• Able to design architectural blueprints, evaluate new tech, and mentor peers.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen and eligible for security clearance.

Responsibilities

• Architect complex distributed software systems and author technical blueprints.
• Establish development standards, PR review frameworks, and SLOs for resilience.
• Design deployment safety pipelines, CI workflows, and automated testing for production releases.
• Serve as Tier-3 escalation authority for complex failures and lead postmortems.
• Mentor engineering teams and foster an inclusive technical culture.

Skills

Full-stack web apps

APIs

Microservices

Python

JavaScript

SQL

Ruby

PHP

CI/CD pipelines

Containerization

Automated testing

Revision control

SRE principles

Architectural blueprints

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

None

Job description

Akamai Technologies is seeking a Principal Software Engineer Lead in Reston, VA to architect scalable distributed systems and drive engineering excellence. You will implement SRE-aligned practices, build deployment safety pipelines, and mentor engineers across teams.

You will influence architectural blueprints, guide tech choices, and lead postmortems while ensuring reliability in a globally distributed platform used for cloud, edge, and security services.