Principal Software Engineer

Job Summary

NetApp’s Cloud AI Team is building a new AI agent product for enterprise customers. The team is applying large language models, agentic frameworks, and multi-cloud engineering to help Fortune 500 companies automate complex workflows across enterprise on-premises and cloud deployments.

We are looking for a Principal Engineer to serve as the technical anchor for this product. In this role, you will own the architecture, set the technical direction for the engineering team, and actively design and build alongside them. This is a hands-on role. You will work closely with leadership to translate product vision into deliverable engineering plans.

What You Will Build And Own

• Define the product architecture: service boundaries, data models, API contracts, runtime design, and the integration patterns that connect AI models to enterprise environments.
• Design and build the core systems: agent orchestration, tool-calling frameworks, multi-cloud execution engines, and the layers that tie them together.
• Own the developer-facing surface of the product: APIs, SDKs, and tooling that must be fast, reliable, and intuitive for customers building on top of the system.
• Drive technical execution across the team: set engineering standards, lead design reviews, unblock engineers, and ensure the team delivers high-quality systems on time.
• Mentor and develop engineers across the team, raising the technical bar and building a culture of excellence.

Required Qualifications

• Solid programming experience in server-side languages and frameworks (e.g., Node.js, Python, Java, Golang, or Rust). Experience with front-end technologies (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript/TypeScript) and frameworks such as React or Angular is a plus.
• Proven ability to develop RESTful APIs or microservices, work with web frameworks, and integrate with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL).
• Proven ability to design distributed systems, cloud-native products, or developer infrastructure and scale them to production.
• Experience building and maintaining modern CI/CD infrastructure that reliably supports large-scale, interconnected software deployment pipelines.
• Understanding of security best practices in cloud development, including authentication/authorization (OAuth, SSO), encryption, and compliance standards.
• Track record of making high-quality technical decisions under ambiguity: you can evaluate trade-offs across performance, maintainability, cost, and time-to-market and choose a path the team can execute.
• Exceptional communication skills. You can explain complex systems to executives, align engineers around a design, and write clear technical documents that drive decisions.
• Work as part of a larger team, collaborating closely with team members and leadership to ensure overall team objectives are met as ONE team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing or building AI agent systems, LLM-powered tools, or products that integrate model inference into production workflows (tool calling, RAG, prompt orchestration).
• Deep familiarity with agentic design patterns: tool-use protocols, context management, multi-step reasoning, and grounding AI models in real-time enterprise data.
• Experience building developer-facing products, APIs, or SDKs used by external customers at scale.
• Experience with containerization and deployment tools such as Docker and Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code tools (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Background in enterprise infrastructure, cloud data services, or storage systems. You understand how enterprise environments work at scale.
• Experience building a new product end-to-end in a fast-paced environment within a larger company.
• Prior experience as a technical lead or principal engineer in a high-performance engineering organization.

Job Requirements

• 12+ years of industry experience in software development.
• 7+ years of expert-level hands-on experience in fault-tolerant, highly scalable cloud architectures, including service-oriented architectures, cloud-native services (FAAS, PAAS), and cloud services with at least one hyperscaler (Azure, AWS, GCP).

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. Master's Degree Preferred.

Compensation

The target salary range for this position is $225,000-$305,000. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. The range is based on 'On Target Earnings’ (OTE) representing the total potential earnings, which is the sum of the base salary and potential commission earned when performance targets are achieved. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s). These offerings are subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. We will provide detailed information about the specific benefits for your region during the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment—you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.

If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one. Apply now.