Principal Software Engineering - Reliability and FinOps Engineer

AT&T; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

AT&T Technology Services is seeking a Principal System Engineer to lead FinOps, cloud optimization, and AI-driven automation across Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, and hybrid-cloud environments. You will translate business needs into durable solutions, guide cross-functional roadmaps, and drive cost efficiency and reliability at enterprise scale.

Join a team focused on secure, scalable platforms, intelligent automation, and governance to reduce cloud waste while delivering measurable value through

Qualifications

• Experience leading enterprise-scale cloud optimization and FinOps.
• Strong expertise in Azure, AWS, Kubernetes and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Experience with automation and DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Provide principal-level technical leadership for resilient, secure, scalable, and cost-efficient platforms across Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Lead FinOps and infrastructure optimization capabilities, including cost allocation, showback, anomaly detection, forecasting, rightsizing, workload scheduling, commitment optimization, waste reduction, and validated savings realization.
• Develop policy-driven, closed-loop optimization workflows that move recommendations through identification, application-owner engagement, approval, ServiceNow change control, execution, validation, evidence capture, and reporting.
• Apply an automation-by-default approach using Python, PowerShell, Bash, REST APIs, Azure Functions, Power Automate, and event-driven services to reduce manual handoffs and operational toil.
• Design practical generative AI, AI-fueled coding, and agentic automation solutions for engineering operations, cost analysis, anomaly investigation, remediation guidance, executive reporting, knowledge retrieval, and decision support.
• Establish cloud-governance guardrails, policy-as-code controls, exception processes, auditability, and risk-based automation patterns aligned with security, architecture, compliance, and change-management requirements.
• Engineer secure identity and authorization models using role-based access control, managed identities, service principals, privileged identity management, just-in-time access, least privilege, and time-bound permissions.
• Integrate optimization and automation capabilities with Terraform, GitHub, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, ServiceNow, monitoring platforms, cost-management tools, and enterprise data sources while preventing configuration drift.
• Advance reliability engineering practices,

Skills

Technical leadership

Cloud platforms

FinOps optimization

Automation tooling

AI automation

Security IAM

Tools

Terraform

GitHub

Azure DevOps

CI/CD pipelines

ServiceNow

Job description

This is a full-time onsite role based in the location(s) posted and is performed from the designated work location five days per week. No relocation is offered.

AT&T will not hire any applicants for this position who require employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Join AT&T and reimagine the communications and technologies that connect the world.The Technology Services organization is responsible for advancing information technology performance and delivering solutions with a focus on maximizing ROI, increasing efficiency and enhancing the experience of end users. Guided by experienced leaders, Corporate Systems seamlessly integrate with advanced Technology and Operations to drive our enterprise forward. Our Systems Reliability and Software Delivery teams are unwavering in their commitment to excellence, ensuring every solution is robust and efficient. When you step into a career with AT&T, you won't just imagine the future, you'll create it.

About The Tea m

AT&T Technology Services is modernizing the technology ecosystem through secure, scalable, cloud-enabled, and AI-powered platforms. Within Reliability & FinOps Engineering, our purpose is to elevate the customer experience by strengthening the reliability and resiliency of critical systems, maximizing the value of technology investments, and accelerating responsible automation.

Our organization brings together reliability engineering, FinOps and infrastructure optimization, AI and automation enablement, and customer-centric business intelligence. We build reusable engineering patterns, policy-driven controls, self-service capabilities, and intelligent optimization services that improve operational outcomes at enterprise scale.

What You'll Do

As a Principal System Engineer, you will serve as a senior technical leader across FinOps, cloud optimization, system reliability, and AI-driven automation. You will shape and execute enterprise strategies that improve the reliability of critical services, reduce cloud waste, strengthen financial accountability, and automate operational workflows across Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, and hybrid-cloud environments.

In this role, you will translate business priorities into durable technical solutions, influence cross-organizational roadmaps, and move optimization opportunities from insight through governed execution and measurable value realization.

Key responsibilities include:

• Provide principal-level technical leadership for resilient, secure, scalable, and cost-efficient platforms across Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Lead FinOps and infrastructure optimization capabilities, including cost allocation, showback, anomaly detection, forecasting, rightsizing, workload scheduling, commitment optimization, waste reduction, and validated savings realization.
• Develop policy-driven, closed-loop optimization workflows that move recommendations through identification, application-owner engagement, approval, ServiceNow change control, execution, validation, evidence capture, and reporting.
• Apply an automation-by-default approach using Python, PowerShell, Bash, REST APIs, Azure Functions, Power Automate, and event-driven services to reduce manual handoffs and operational toil.
• Design practical generative AI, AI-fueled coding, and agentic automation solutions for engineering operations, cost analysis, anomaly investigation, remediation guidance, executive reporting, knowledge retrieval, and decision support.
• Establish cloud-governance guardrails, policy-as-code controls, exception processes, auditability, and risk-based automation patterns aligned with security, architecture, compliance, and change-management requirements.
• Engineer secure identity and authorization models using role-based access control, managed identities, service principals, privileged identity management, just-in-time access, least privilege, and time-bound permissions.
• Integrate optimization and automation capabilities with Terraform, GitHub, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, ServiceNow, monitoring platforms, cost-management tools, and enterprise data sources while preventing configuration drift.
• Advance reliability engineering practices,