H-1B Visa Principal Systems Engineer Jobs
Principal Systems Engineer jobs with H-1B visa sponsorship sit squarely within the specialty occupation definition: the role requires a bachelor's degree or higher in systems engineering, electrical engineering, or a closely related field. Employers file a certified LCA with DOL and an I-129 petition with USCIS, sponsoring you for an initial three-year status period.
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Get Access To All JobsINTRODUCTION
At NetApp, our High Achievement Principles shape how we work: we innovate to elevate, drive results, and excel as a team. We have a history of helping customers turn challenges into business opportunities. That’s because we bring new thinking to age-old problems, like how to use data most effectively in the most efficient possible way. As an Engineer with NetApp, you’ll have the opportunity to work with modern cloud and container orchestration technologies in a production setting. You’ll play an important role in scaling systems sustainably through automation and evolving them by pushing for changes to improve reliability and velocity.
Success profile
Ready to be an engineer at NetApp? Explore the traits that can help you thrive.
- Analytical
- Adaptable
- Communicator
- Detail-oriented
- Quick-thinking
- Problem solver
Responsibilities
San Jose, California, United States; Morrisville, North Carolina, United States
Job category: Software Engineering
Job ID: 137180-en_US
Own Every Moment at NetApp
At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.
Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you'll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you're ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins. Join teams that innovate to elevate, drive results, and excel together across every function.
Job Summary
NetApp is building the next generation of intelligent data infrastructure to help organizations manage, protect, move, and unlock the value of their data across on-premises, hybrid-cloud, and AI environments.
We are seeking Senior, Principal and Distinguished Engineers and Technical Leaders to help architect, design, and build technologies that will evolve ONTAP for the AI era. You will solve complex systems challenges across distributed storage, file systems, data protection, drive/node failure resilience, performance, storage efficiency, AI data infrastructure, virtualization, and hardware.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role for engineers with deep expertise in one or more systems domains and the ability to solve problems across technical boundaries. You will work with engineering teams across ONTAP, WAFL, RAID, Storage, Platform, Performance, and Hardware to develop scalable, resilient, and high-performance solutions.
We are hiring across multiple Teams. These positions may be hired at the MTS5 or MTS6 level based on experience, technical depth, scope, and demonstrated impact.
- Architect and develop next-generation storage and data infrastructure technologies.
- Influence technical direction and architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams.
- Lead complex systems initiatives from architecture and design through development, optimization, and production delivery.
- Translate emerging AI, cloud, and enterprise infrastructure requirements into scalable technical solutions.
- Solve complex problems spanning distributed systems, file systems, metadata, data protection, performance, operating systems, networking, and hardware.
- Design highly available and fault-tolerant systems with strong consistency, resiliency, recovery, and performance characteristics.
- Analyze and optimize system performance across CPU, memory, networking, and storage.
- Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar through architecture, design, and code reviews.
- Lead root-cause analysis of complex cross-subsystem issues.
- Develop production-quality systems software using C, C++, or related systems programming languages.
Areas of Technical Expertise
We're looking for deep expertise in one or more of the following:
- Distributed and scale-out storage systems
- File systems, metadata, consistency, and recovery
- RAID, erasure coding, replication, and data protection
- Storage efficiency, compression, compaction, and deduplication
- AI data infrastructure, training/inference pipelines, RAG, and high-performance I/O
- Storage performance engineering, benchmarking, QoS, and workload characterization
- NVMe, SSD/HDD technologies, storage media, and commodity hardware
- Linux/UNIX/FreeBSD internals and kernel development
- Virtualization, hypervisors, RDMA, and high-performance networking
- Hybrid-cloud and cloud-native data infrastructure
Job Requirements
- 12+ years of software engineering experience designing and developing complex systems software, storage systems, file systems, distributed systems, operating systems, infrastructure software, or related technologies.
- Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering complex, production-quality systems.
- Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams and organizational boundaries.
- Deep expertise in at least one area of large-scale storage, distributed systems, or data infrastructure.
- Strong hands-on programming experience in C, C++, or comparable systems programming languages.
- Strong foundation in operating systems, computer architecture, networking, concurrency, storage, and distributed systems.
- Ability to analyze system-level interactions and make technical trade-offs across performance, scalability, reliability, resiliency, efficiency, and cost.
- Strong problem-solving and root-cause analysis skills for problems spanning multiple technical domains.
- Experience providing technical leadership and mentoring engineers.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience architecting large-scale distributed or highly available systems.
- Kernel-level software development and debugging experience.
- Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, GPU data pipelines, or high-performance I/O.
- Experience with performance engineering and benchmarking.
- Knowledge of NVMe, SSDs, HDDs, or commodity storage platforms.
- Experience with hypervisors, virtualization, RDMA, or cloud infrastructure.
- Track record of technical innovation through product architecture, patents, publications, or other significant technical contributions.
Education
Bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
Compensation
The target salary range for this position is 227,800 - 338,800 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. 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, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of 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.
Submitting an Application
To ensure a streamlined and fair hiring process for all candidates, our team only reviews applications submitted through our company website. This practice allows us to track, assess, and respond to applicants efficiently. Emailing our employees, recruiters, or Human Resources personnel directly will not influence your application.
AI Disclosure
For select roles, some stages of our hiring process may use artificial intelligence tools to help evaluate applications and candidate selection. These tools support—rather than replace—human decision-making.
Our values
Put the customer at the center. Care for each other and our communities. Think and act like owners. Build belonging every day. Embrace a growth mindset.
Benefits
Volunteer time off
40 hours of paid volunteer time each year.
Well-being
Employee Assistance Program, fitness, and mental health resources to help employees be their best.
Time away
Paid time off for vacation and to recharge.
INTRODUCTION
At NetApp, our High Achievement Principles shape how we work: we innovate to elevate, drive results, and excel as a team. We have a history of helping customers turn challenges into business opportunities. That’s because we bring new thinking to age-old problems, like how to use data most effectively in the most efficient possible way. As an Engineer with NetApp, you’ll have the opportunity to work with modern cloud and container orchestration technologies in a production setting. You’ll play an important role in scaling systems sustainably through automation and evolving them by pushing for changes to improve reliability and velocity.
Success profile
Ready to be an engineer at NetApp? Explore the traits that can help you thrive.
- Analytical
- Adaptable
- Communicator
- Detail-oriented
- Quick-thinking
- Problem solver
Responsibilities
San Jose, California, United States; Morrisville, North Carolina, United States
Job category: Software Engineering
Job ID: 137180-en_US
Own Every Moment at NetApp
At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud.
Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you'll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you're ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins. Join teams that innovate to elevate, drive results, and excel together across every function.
Job Summary
NetApp is building the next generation of intelligent data infrastructure to help organizations manage, protect, move, and unlock the value of their data across on-premises, hybrid-cloud, and AI environments.
We are seeking Senior, Principal and Distinguished Engineers and Technical Leaders to help architect, design, and build technologies that will evolve ONTAP for the AI era. You will solve complex systems challenges across distributed storage, file systems, data protection, drive/node failure resilience, performance, storage efficiency, AI data infrastructure, virtualization, and hardware.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role for engineers with deep expertise in one or more systems domains and the ability to solve problems across technical boundaries. You will work with engineering teams across ONTAP, WAFL, RAID, Storage, Platform, Performance, and Hardware to develop scalable, resilient, and high-performance solutions.
We are hiring across multiple Teams. These positions may be hired at the MTS5 or MTS6 level based on experience, technical depth, scope, and demonstrated impact.
- Architect and develop next-generation storage and data infrastructure technologies.
- Influence technical direction and architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams.
- Lead complex systems initiatives from architecture and design through development, optimization, and production delivery.
- Translate emerging AI, cloud, and enterprise infrastructure requirements into scalable technical solutions.
- Solve complex problems spanning distributed systems, file systems, metadata, data protection, performance, operating systems, networking, and hardware.
- Design highly available and fault-tolerant systems with strong consistency, resiliency, recovery, and performance characteristics.
- Analyze and optimize system performance across CPU, memory, networking, and storage.
- Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar through architecture, design, and code reviews.
- Lead root-cause analysis of complex cross-subsystem issues.
- Develop production-quality systems software using C, C++, or related systems programming languages.
Areas of Technical Expertise
We're looking for deep expertise in one or more of the following:
- Distributed and scale-out storage systems
- File systems, metadata, consistency, and recovery
- RAID, erasure coding, replication, and data protection
- Storage efficiency, compression, compaction, and deduplication
- AI data infrastructure, training/inference pipelines, RAG, and high-performance I/O
- Storage performance engineering, benchmarking, QoS, and workload characterization
- NVMe, SSD/HDD technologies, storage media, and commodity hardware
- Linux/UNIX/FreeBSD internals and kernel development
- Virtualization, hypervisors, RDMA, and high-performance networking
- Hybrid-cloud and cloud-native data infrastructure
Job Requirements
- 12+ years of software engineering experience designing and developing complex systems software, storage systems, file systems, distributed systems, operating systems, infrastructure software, or related technologies.
- Demonstrated experience architecting and delivering complex, production-quality systems.
- Demonstrated ability to influence technical direction across teams and organizational boundaries.
- Deep expertise in at least one area of large-scale storage, distributed systems, or data infrastructure.
- Strong hands-on programming experience in C, C++, or comparable systems programming languages.
- Strong foundation in operating systems, computer architecture, networking, concurrency, storage, and distributed systems.
- Ability to analyze system-level interactions and make technical trade-offs across performance, scalability, reliability, resiliency, efficiency, and cost.
- Strong problem-solving and root-cause analysis skills for problems spanning multiple technical domains.
- Experience providing technical leadership and mentoring engineers.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience architecting large-scale distributed or highly available systems.
- Kernel-level software development and debugging experience.
- Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, GPU data pipelines, or high-performance I/O.
- Experience with performance engineering and benchmarking.
- Knowledge of NVMe, SSDs, HDDs, or commodity storage platforms.
- Experience with hypervisors, virtualization, RDMA, or cloud infrastructure.
- Track record of technical innovation through product architecture, patents, publications, or other significant technical contributions.
Education
Bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
Compensation
The target salary range for this position is 227,800 - 338,800 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. 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, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of 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.
Submitting an Application
To ensure a streamlined and fair hiring process for all candidates, our team only reviews applications submitted through our company website. This practice allows us to track, assess, and respond to applicants efficiently. Emailing our employees, recruiters, or Human Resources personnel directly will not influence your application.
AI Disclosure
For select roles, some stages of our hiring process may use artificial intelligence tools to help evaluate applications and candidate selection. These tools support—rather than replace—human decision-making.
Our values
Put the customer at the center. Care for each other and our communities. Think and act like owners. Build belonging every day. Embrace a growth mindset.
Benefits
Volunteer time off
40 hours of paid volunteer time each year.
Well-being
Employee Assistance Program, fitness, and mental health resources to help employees be their best.
Time away
Paid time off for vacation and to recharge.
See all 1,451+ H-1B Visa Principal Systems Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new H-1B Visa Principal Systems Engineer Jobs.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding H-1B Visa Sponsorship as a Principal Systems Engineer
Map your degree to the role
USCIS evaluates specialty occupation fit by checking whether your degree field directly relates to Principal Systems Engineer duties. A systems, electrical, computer, or aerospace engineering degree strengthens your petition. Document coursework in systems architecture, integration, or design before you apply.
Use OFLC Wage Search before negotiating
Your employer must certify a wage at or above the DOL prevailing wage for your specific location. Pull the Level III or Level IV wage from OFLC Wage Search for your metro area and SOC code before any offer conversation so you can verify compliance yourself.
Find sponsors through verified LCA history
Target employers who have filed certified LCAs for systems engineering roles, not just any tech company. Migrate Mate shows verified H-1B sponsorship history by role and location, so you can focus your applications on employers who have already navigated this process.
Confirm each worksite has its own LCA
Principal Systems Engineers often rotate across customer sites or government facilities. USCIS requires a separate certified LCA for each worksite not covered in the original petition. Raise this with your employer before accepting a role with multi-site responsibilities.
Check the cap status before your start date
H-1B selection rules have changed recently, so verify current cap and registration requirements directly with USCIS before your employer files. If you're already in H-1B status with another employer, a cap-exempt transfer may let you start sooner.
Align your O*NET profile with your offer letter
Review the Principal Systems Engineer occupation profile on O*NET and ensure your offer letter's listed duties mirror the standard task descriptions. Gaps between the posted role and official occupation benchmarks are a common source of USCIS Requests for Evidence on specialty occupation.
H-1B Visa Principal Systems Engineer: Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Principal Systems Engineer role qualify as an H-1B specialty occupation?
Yes. Principal Systems Engineer is a recognized specialty occupation because it normally requires at least a bachelor's degree in systems engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, or a closely related discipline. USCIS looks at the complexity of the duties and the industry standard for the role, both of which support qualification for most employer petitions in this field.
How do I find employers who actively sponsor H-1B visas for systems engineering roles?
Search Migrate Mate to browse Principal Systems Engineer positions at employers with verified H-1B LCA filing history. This lets you skip companies that have never sponsored the visa type and focus your time on organizations that already understand the filing process, reducing the risk of an employer declining after an offer.
Can my H-1B cover multiple work locations as a Principal Systems Engineer?
Not automatically. DOL requires a separate certified LCA for each worksite where you'll perform work for more than 30 days per year. If your role involves client sites, government facilities, or remote locations not listed in the original petition, your employer must file additional LCA certifications before you work at those locations.
What happens to my H-1B status if I'm laid off or change employers?
H-1B status is tied to the sponsoring employer, so a layoff triggers a 60-day grace period during which you must find a new sponsor, change to another valid status, or leave the country. A new employer can file an H-1B transfer petition, and you're generally authorized to start working as soon as USCIS receives the petition, not after approval.
What level of H-1B prevailing wage applies to a Principal Systems Engineer position?
Most Principal Systems Engineer roles fall at DOL wage Level III or Level IV, reflecting independent judgment, supervisory responsibilities, and specialized expertise. Your employer determines the level based on your actual duties and experience, then certifies a wage at or above that threshold using OFLC Wage Search data for your specific metro area and occupation code.