Senior Principal Software Engineer

MainframeMaster; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

MainframeMaster is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to lead Workload Automation initiatives across mainframe and hybrid cloud environments. You will drive architecture, mentoring of global teams, and collaboration with product management, sales, and engineering to deliver secure, reliable automation platforms.

You will guide modernization, promote scalable automation, and implement AI-enhanced workflows while maintaining high performance and observability across enterprise-scale

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering/technical product experience.
• Deep knowledge of automation technologies and workload orchestration.
• Proven experience architecting scalable platforms for hybrid cloud and mainframe environments.
• Strong programming skills in Java, Python, Go and API design.
• Familiarity with observability platforms and security best practices.

Responsibilities

• Create and maintain the automation solution architecture aligned with vision and product direction.
• Direct requirements and backlog maintenance to support roadmap.
• Lead technical debt assessment and resolution.
• Explore automation integration opportunities across Rocket and Partner ecosystems.

Skills

Leadership

Technical vision

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Java

Python

Go

HLASM / zAssembler

Job description

The Infrastructure Modernization business unit is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to serve as a visionary and hands‑on technical leader for our Workload Automation solutions. These solutions are foundational to our customers’ ability to automate business critical processes/workflows, ensure predictable batch workload execution, and modernize software engineering, development, and deployment processes. This responsibility requires deep expertise in automation technologies and practices, and runbook operational responsibilities. In this role, this person will be a recognized thought leader, driving the evolution of our Automation product lines to meet enterprise mainframe and hybrid cloud environment. You will collaborate with customers, engineering teams, sales, and product management teams to ensure our offerings deliver robust protection, highly reliable, performant, operationally simple, and highly secure. Key modernization initiatives will include:

• Embedding generative and predictive AI to enhance predictable operational outcomes, build workflow processes, and effectively integrate automation into enterprises. In short, modernize our approach to pan-enterprise automation.
• Architecting scalable, resilient automation platforms that support dynamic workloads
• Developing modern, secure APIs to improve integration with enterprise batch, business process workflow ecosystems and observability platforms.
• Streamlining deployment and configuration compatible with modern deployment containerization and provisioning technologies.
• Deliver solutions that automate workflows seamlessly across the entire hybrid enterprise computing stack

• Key Role Responsibilities- Create and maintain the automation solution architecture that demonstrates key capabilities and value that customers require today and may well require tomorrow
• Direct requirements and backlog maintenance to ensure alignment with key vision and product direction.
• Evaluates and recommend key function and value streams necessary to address future vision-based use cases that will allow us to achieve:
  • Competitive differentiation
  • Market leading (e.g. Gartner Magic Quadrant)
  • Full function vs. niche alignment based on strategy dictates
  • Build vs. Buy recommendations
• Lead and advise on technical debt assessment and resolution
• Explore and advocate for automation integration opportunities across Rocket and our Partner ecosystems.

Requirements & Skills

• Minimum Qualifications: 10+ years of professional software engineering/technical product experience, including at least 5 years in a principal or senior technical leadership role.
• Deep knowledge of automation technologies and workload orchestration.
• Proven experience architecting scalable, resilient platforms for hybrid cloud and mainframe environments.
• Strong proficiency in z Assembler (HLASM), system diagnostics, and the z/OS architecture as well as modern programming languages (e.g., Java, Python, Go, or similar) and API design.
• Familiarity with observability platforms, security best practices, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to define technical vision and roadmap for enterprise-scale solutions.
• Experience acting as a player-coach, mentoring global engineering teams while contributing technically.
• Strong collaboration skills with cross-functional teams (Product Management, Sales, Customer Engineering).
• Expertise in enterprise workload automation, batch processing, and integration with business process workflows.
• Understanding of AI/ML integration for predictive and generative automation use cases.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills for engaging with customers and executive stakeholders.
• Ability to work in a global, distributed development environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field