Principal Software Engineer, Platform Engineering

Moderna; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 142,500 - 256,500; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Well-being programs

Family planning benefits

Generous paid time off

Financial planning and equity options

Location-specific perks

Job summary

Moderna is seeking a hands-on Principal Software Engineer, Platform Engineering to define and evolve reusable platform capabilities that help application teams build, deploy, and operate software safely at scale.

This senior individual contributor role combines technical execution with cross‑functional leadership across Builders, Cybersecurity, Architecture, AI platform teams, and broader teams to enable secure and productive development.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software or platform engineering experience.
• Experience designing, implementing, and operating developer platforms.
• Strong Python or TypeScript/JavaScript programming skills.
• Extensive GitHub, GitHub Actions, and CI/CD experience.
• Experience with AWS and containerized deployments.
• Expertise in secure software development practices and software supply chain.
• Ability to set technical direction and lead cross-functional initiatives.
• Mentor engineers and drive engineering standards across teams.
• Proven ability to adapt to changing priorities in ambiguous spaces.
• Experience with platform engineering responsibilities beyond prior scope.

Responsibilities

• Design and build secure platform capabilities using Python/TypeScript, GitHub Actions, Pulumi, Docker, AWS.
• Lead AI runtime safety and AI gateway patterns, including policy enforcement and telemetry.
• Package tools and create reusable integration patterns to improve developer experience.
• Partner with Cybersecurity, Architecture, and AI platform teams on standards and strategy.
• Create templates, reference implementations, and paved-road patterns for secure development.
• Improve developer experience by reducing setup time and standardizing workflows.
• Establish operational practices: monitoring, runbooks, and run ownership.
• Identify recurring pain points and influence roadmaps for shared platforms.
• Lead secure software delivery controls into CI/CD pipelines and guardrails.
• Contribute hands-on across Builder Tools & Platforms priorities and mentor engineers.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

GitHub Actions

AWS

Docker

CI/CD pipelines

Security

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Problem solving

Tools

Pulumi

Terraform

Kubernetes

Job description

The Role

Moderna is looking for a hands‑on, impact-driven Principal Software Engineer, Platform Engineering to help define, build and evolve reusable platform capabilities that enable application teams to develop, deploy, and operate software safely and effectively. This is a senior individual contributor role that combines deep technical execution with cross‑functional technical leadership across developers ("Builders"), Cybersecurity, Architecture, AI platform teams, and broader teams to provide scalable, secure, and user‑focused capabilities that make the right path the easiest path for Moderna’s engineering teams.

The initial focus for this role will be advancing AI runtime safety and AI gateway capabilities, including reusable integration patterns, policy enforcement, telemetry, secure development workflows, and operational tooling, and paved‑road controls for governed AI assisted development. Over time, this role will influence and contribute across the broader Builder Tools & Platforms portfolio, including developer tooling, secure software delivery, internal frameworks, platform automation, and paved‑road engineering standards.

This role is well suited for a principal engineer who thrives in ambiguous, high‑impact problem spaces and can move fluidly from strategy and architecture to hands‑on implementation, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, production operations, developer enablement, and secure software delivery. You will help translate emerging enterprise needs into reliable, reusable, and well‑governed platform capabilities for Moderna’s engineering teams.

Here’s What You’ll Do

• Design and build secure platform capabilities using Python/TypeScript, GitHub Actions, Pulumi, Docker, AWS, and relevant internal or vendor APIs.
• Lead the design and evolution of AI runtime safety and AI gateway patterns, including policy enforcement, access controls, telemetry, auditability and operational controls.
• Build and guide implementation of governed AI‑assisted development workflows by packaging approved tools, creating reusable integration patterns, improving developer experience, and embedding security and compliance expectations into paved‑road delivery workflows.
• Partner with Cybersecurity, Architecture, AI platform teams, and engineering leaders to align on platform standards, adoption strategy, risk posture, and implementation tradeoffs.
• Create and drive adoption of templates, reference implementations, documentation, examples, and paved‑road patterns that help application teams adopt secure development and AI‑assisted workflows.
• Improve developer experience by identifying systemic friction, reducing setup time, eliminating manual toil, standardizing common workflows, and making secure patterns easy to adopt.
• Establish and mature operational practices for owned capabilities, including monitoring, alerting, dashboards, runbooks, support models, service ownership, and lifecycle management.
• Identify recurring developer pain points and influence roadmap by proposing improvements to shared frameworks, templates, platform tooling, and paved paths.
• Lead integration of secure software delivery controls into development workflows, including CI/CD guardrails, policy checks, artifact controls, and developer remediation patterns.
• Contribute hands‑on across Builder Tools & Platforms priorities as team needs evolve, including developer tooling, platform automation, secure delivery patterns, internal frameworks, and operational support.
• Mentor and coach engineers, raise engineering standards, review design and implementations, and help teams make durable technical decisions across platform and application boundaries.

Here’s What You’ll Need (Minimum Qualifications)

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, DevOps, infrastructure automation, secure software delivery, or a related role.
• Deep software engineering experience designing, implementing, and operating developer platforms, internal tools, infrastructure automation, CI/CD systems, or secure software delivery platforms.
• Very strong programming skills in Python or TypeScript/JavaScript.
• Significant experience with GitHub, GitHub Actions, CI/CD workflows, and modern software delivery practices.
• Significant experience with AWS or another cloud provider for deploying and managing applications or platform services.
• Experience with Docker and containerized applications.
• Strong understanding of secure software development practices, software supply chain, dependency management, vulnerability scanning, artifact management, secrets handling, identity, authorization, and policy enforcement.
• Proven ability to set technical direction and design systems that balance security, standardization, usability, reliability, and developer productivity.
• Proven experience leading technical initiatives with cross‑functional stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, raise technical standards, and guide teams through architecture, design, implementation, and operational tradeoffs.
• Expert troubleshooting skills across application code, build pipelines, cloud infrastructure, networking, identity, developer tooling, and third‑party platforms.
• Demonstrated ability to adapt to changing team priorities, operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces, and contribute across a range of platform engineering responsibilities, including areas outside immediate prior experience.

Here’s What You’ll Bring to the Table (Preferred Qualifications)

• Experience with AI‑assisted development tooling, AI gateway patterns, model or API access controls, policy‑as‑code, telemetry, or runtime safety controls.
• Experience shaping platform strategy or technical roadmaps for capabilities adopted by multiple engineering teams.
• Experience partnering with security, architecture, platform, and application teams to drive adoption of shared capabilities and standards.
• Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code tools such as Pulumi, CDK, Terraform, or similar.
• Experience with application security, cloud security, software supply chain controls, vulnerability management workflows, or secure CI/CD guardrails.
• Experience building internal developer platforms, paved‑road workflows, reusable templates, CLIs, scaffolding systems, or shared engineering standards.
• Experience with Kubernetes, container security, base image lifecycle management, secrets management, network isolation, or secure runtime patterns.
• Experience creating documentation, reference architecture, onboarding materials, and developer enablement content for shared platform capabilities.

Pay & Benefits

• Competitive healthcare, plus voluntary benefit programs to support your unique needs
• A holistic approach to well‑being, with access to fitness, mindfulness, and mental health support
• Family planning benefits, including fertility, adoption, and surrogacy support
• Generous paid time off, including vacation, volunteer days, sabbatical, global recharge days, and a discretionary year‑end shutdown
• Savings and investments to help you plan for the future
• Location‑specific perks and extras

The salary range for this role is $142,500.00 - $256,500.00. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An individual’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, performance, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate may be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus, other incentive compensation, or equity award, subject to company plan eligibility criteria and individual performance.

About Moderna

Since our founding in 2010, we have aspired to build the leading mRNA technology platform, the infrastructure to reimagine how medicines are created and delivered, and a world‑class team. We believe in giving our people a platform to change medicine and an opportunity to change the world.

By living our mission, values, and mindsets every day, our people are the driving force behind our scientific progress and our culture. Together, we are creating a culture of belonging and building an organization that cares deeply for our patients, our employees, the environment, and our communities.

We are proud to have been recognized as a Science Magazine Top Biopharma Employer, a Fast Company Best Workplace for Innovators, and a Great Place to Work in the U.S.

If you want to make a difference and join a team that is changing the future of medicine, we invite you to visit modernatx.com/careers to learn more about our current opportunities.

Our Working Model

As we build our company, we have always believed an in‑person culture is critical to our success. Moderna champions the significant benefits of in‑office collaboration by embracing a 70/30 work model. This 70% in‑office structure helps to foster a culture rich in innovation, teamwork, and direct mentorship. Join us in shaping a world where every interaction is an opportunity to learn, contribute, and make a meaningful impact.

Moderna is a smoke‑free, alcohol‑free, and drug‑free work environment.

Equal Opportunities

Moderna is committed to equal employment opportunity and non‑discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry or citizenship, ethnicity, disability, military or protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital or familial status, or any other personal characteristic protected under applicable law. Moderna is a place where everyone can grow. If you meet the Basic Qualifications for the role and you would be excited to contribute to our mission every day, please apply!

Accommodations

We’re focused on attracting, retaining, developing, and advancing our employees. By cultivating a workplace that values diverse experiences, backgrounds, and ideas, we create an environment where every employee can contribute their best. Moderna is committed to offering reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants with disabilities. Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should contact the Accommodations team at [e-mail].

Export Control Notice This position may involve access to technology or data that is subject to U.S. export control laws, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). As such, employment is contingent upon the applicant’s ability to access export‑controlled information in accordance with U.S. law. Due to the nature of the work and regulatory requirements, only individuals who qualify as U.S. persons (citizens, permanent residents, asylees, or refugees) are eligible for this position. For this role Moderna is unable to sponsor non‑U.S. persons to apply for an export control license.