Principal Software Engineer - Trusted Data Platform

Atlassian; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Atlassian is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead and architect high-scale distributed storage systems on AWS. You will design, implement, and optimize backend storage services, ensuring throughput, latency, and durability at enterprise scale.

You will mentor engineers, run architecture reviews, and collaborate with SREs on observability, security, and cost optimization. This role offers distributed-first, flexible work options across the West US and beyond.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend software development experience.
• 5+ years AWS storage services experience (S3, DynamoDB, EBS, EFS, FSx, Glacier).
• Strong system design and scalability expertise for large-scale storage.
• Proficiency in Kotlin, Java, Go, Rust or Python.
• Experience with highly available, fault-tolerant storage architectures.
• Security, encryption, and compliance knowledge (SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA).

Responsibilities

• Design and optimize high-scale, distributed storage systems.
• Lead architecture reviews and root cause analyses.
• Mentor senior engineers and shape technical roadmaps.
• Collaborate with SREs on observability, security, and cost optimization.

Skills

Backend systems

Distributed systems

Mentoring

Roadmaps

Observability

Cost optimization

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/SE

Tools

AWS Storage

Terraform

Kubernetes

CloudFormation

DynamoDB

Job description

Overview

Working at Atlassian

Atlassians can choose where they work - whether in an office, from home, or a combination of the two. That way, Atlassians have more control over supporting their family, personal goals, and other priorities. We can hire people in any country where we have a legal entity. Interviews and onboarding are conducted virtually, a part of being a distributed-first company.

Our office is in Bellevue, WA, but we offer flexibility for eligible candidates to work remotely across the West US. Whatever your preference - working from home, an office, or in between - you can choose the place that's best for your work and your lifestyle. We call this TEAM anywhere .

Responsibilities

As a Principal Software Engineer, you will be a technical leader and hands-on contributor, designing and optimizing high-scale, distributed storage systems built on AWS storage technologies. You will play a pivotal role in shaping the architecture, performance, and reliability of backend storage solutions that power critical applications at scale.

Your primary responsibilities will include designing, implementing, and optimizing backend storage services that support high throughput, low latency, and fault tolerance. You will work closely with senior engineers, architects, and cross-functional teams to drive scalability, availability, and efficiency improvements in large-scale storage solutions. You will also lead technical deep dives, architecture reviews, and root cause analyses to resolve complex production issues related to storage performance, consistency, and durability.

As a thought leader, you will drive best practices in distributed system design, security, and cloud cost optimization. You will also mentor senior engineers, contribute to technical roadmaps, and help shape the long-term storage strategy. Your expertise in storage consistency models, data partitioning, indexing, and caching strategies will be instrumental in improving system performance and reliability.

Additionally, you will collaborate with Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) to implement observability, monitoring, and disaster recovery strategies, ensuring high availability and compliance with industry standards. You will advocate for automation, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), and DevOps best practices, leveraging tools like Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, Kubernetes (EKS), and CI/CD pipelines to enable scalable deployments and operational excellence.

Qualifications

Basic Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of experience in backend software development, focusing on distributed systems and storage solutions.
• 5+ years of experience working with AWS storage services (S3, DynamoDB, EBS, EFS, FSx, Glacier).
• Strong expertise in system design, architecture, and scalability for large-scale storage solutions.
• Proficiency in at least one major backend programming language (Kotlin, Java, Go, Rust, or Python).
• Experience designing and implementing highly available, fault-tolerant, and cost-efficient storage architectures.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, replication strategies, sharding, and caching.
• Knowledge of data security, encryption best practices, and compliance requirements (SOC2, GDPR, HIPAA).
• Experience leading engineering teams, mentoring senior engineers, and driving technical roadmaps.
• Proficiency with observability tools, performance monitoring, and troubleshooting at scale.

Core Requirements

Expertise in Large-Scale Storage Systems

• Deep knowledge of AWS storage services (S3, DynamoDB, EBS, EFS, FSx, Glacier) and their performance characteristics.
• Experience designing and optimizing object storage, block storage, and file storage solutions at scale.
• Strong understanding of storage durability, consistency models, replication, and erasure coding for fault tolerance.
• Experience implementing tiered storage solutions and cost-optimized data retention strategies.

Distributed Systems & Scalability

• Deep understanding of distributed storage architectures, CAP theorem, and consistency models.
• Expertise in partitioning, sharding, and replication strategies for low-latency, high-throughput storage.
• Experience designing and implementing highly available, fault-tolerant distributed systems using consensus algorithms (Raft, Paxos, Gossip Protocol).
• Hands-on experience with high-performance NoSQL databases (DynamoDB, Cassandra, RocksDB).

High-Performance Backend Engineering

• Strong programming skills in Kotlin, Java, Go, Rust, or Python for backend storage development.
• Experience building event-driven, microservices-based architectures using gRPC, REST, or WebSockets.
• Expertise in data serialization formats (Parquet, Avro, ORC) for optimized storage access.
• Experience implementing data compression, deduplication, and indexing strategies to improve storage efficiency.

Cloud-Native & Infrastructure Automation

• Strong hands-on