Senior Level Principal Developer Jobs

INTRODUCTION

Designs and develops advanced network systems for scalable enterprise, data center, or cloud-based environments, ensuring alignment with existing infrastructure patterns and collaborating with vendors and internal stakeholders for comprehensive validation. Designs and builds advanced modules within automation frameworks to support testing, operations, and service reliability, automating high-impact network tasks and developing proactive monitoring systems. Designs advanced test strategies and reusable test cases, leading cross-functional collaboration, refining validation methods, and ensuring systems meet compliance and deployment standards. Designs advanced systems for network health monitoring, partners with teams to refine anomaly detection, leads incident response and root cause analysis, and builds efficient tools for frontline support teams. Drives milestone achievements with project managers, mentors junior engineers, leads customer engagements and root cause analysis (RCA) documentation, and ensures integration meets technical standards. Leads network performance analysis to drive scalable improvements and forecasts infrastructure needs for growth.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Responsibilities

Network Design, Development, and Validation:

• Designs and develops advanced network systems that support scalable enterprise, data center, or cloud environments, ensuring alignment with existing infrastructure patterns.

• Validates production networks and develops scaling strategies for diverse and evolving use cases across systems or services.

• Participates in solution architecture discussions, providing technical guidance on network requirements, tradeoffs, and design decisions.

• Identifies and assesses complex risks in network design and recommends mitigation strategies before deployment.

• Collaborates with vendors and internal stakeholders to align on hardware, firmware, software, and cloud network code requirements.

• Designs playbooks for resolving common and uncommon network issues involving moderately complex systems.

• Analyzes network workflows to identify inefficiencies and proposes scalable solutions to improve performance.

Automation and Scripting:

• Designs and builds advanced modules within automation frameworks to support testing, operations, and service reliability across multiple environments.

• Automates high-impact network tasks for production and lab environments, and optimizes repetitive, cross-team workflows to improve operational efficiency.

• Develops and maintains advanced dashboards, telemetry tools, and alerting systems to enable proactive monitoring and faster issue resolution.

• Writes, enhances, and documents reusable scripts that streamline routine network operations across teams and product domains.

• Modifies and extends infrastructure pipelines and configuration management tools to meet evolving requirements using existing playbooks and custom logic.

• Independently configures and extends tools to support new products or services, ensuring alignment with platform standards and integration best practices.

Testing and Quality Assurance:

• Designs and develops advanced test strategies and reusable test cases that validate complex network systems and enhance long-term network integrity and reliability.

• Leads team-level test practices and cross-functional collaboration, helping define robust testing protocols and ensuring consistency in execution across environments.

• Implements and refines post-incident validation methods, integrating break-fix outcomes and lessons learned into continuous test improvements.

• Reviews and approves L1 and L2 network changes, and presents high-impact changes to cross-team change management boards, ensuring risks are understood and mitigated.

• Partners with cross-functional teams to drive pre-production validation efforts, ensuring systems and environments meet compliance and deployment-readiness criteria.

• Prepares and delivers audit documentation and test evidence to support internal Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) processes, maintaining alignment with security and policy requirements.

Monitoring and Reliability:

• Works with others (e.g. monitoring teams) to customize dashboards, telemetry pipelines, and alerting systems, defining service level objectives (SLOs) based on thresholds and metrics to monitor network health.

• Partners with monitoring and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams to refine alerting systems and enhance early detection of network anomalies and degradation.

• Leads incident response during support rotations, driving root cause analysis and coordinating cross-team resolution for escalated issues.

• Builds and improves internal tools that enable frontline support teams to efficiently respond to network failures and recurring operational issues.

Cross-Team Collaboration and Leadership:

• Drives test and deployment milestones in collaboration with project/program managers, adapting plans to address risks and ensure cross-team alignment.

• Mentors junior engineers and acts as a technical SME, providing hands-on guidance in resolving complex issues.

• Leads customer engagements on technical escalations and delivers clear, actionable root cause analysis (RCA) documentation.

• Influences team-level roadmap and architecture decisions, contributing solutions that align with broader engineering goals.

• Coordinates with vendors and internal teams to resolve standards misalignment, ensuring integration meets technical and operational expectations.

Performance and Capacity Management:

• Leads analysis of network performance metrics (e.g., latency, throughput, packet loss) to identify systemic inefficiencies and drive scalable improvements.

• Forecasts infrastructure needs using performance and capacity data, ensuring systems are prepared for anticipated traffic and service growth.

Core Responsibilities

Planning & Execution:

• Manages and coordinates moderately complex tasks, monitoring timelines and deliverables to ensure timely completion and adherence to requirements for a moderately-sized project or initiative. Efficiently delegates, monitors, and prioritizes work across multiple projects, providing technical oversight and adjusting plans to address shifts in resources or timelines.

Collaboration & Partnership:

• Collaborates across the organization to align on expectations and achieve shared objectives. Leverages understanding of business leaders, stakeholders, and/or customers to ensure proposed solutions meet their needs. Supports inclusivity by actively seeking and listening to diverse perspectives, ensuring others feel heard and respected.

Problem Solving:

• Identifies and addresses moderately complex issues by analyzing a wide range of data and/or information to identify solutions in accordance with standard practices. Proactively escalates unresolved or critical issues with a thorough assessment and suggests potential solutions. Reviews, contributes to, and documents problem-solving strategies.

Continuous Learning:

• Pursues learning opportunities to expand knowledge and skills and/or tools in new areas and stays abreast of the latest industry trends and best practices. Proactively seeks and leverages ongoing feedback and training to improve skills. Coaches and mentors junior team members, fostering continuous learning and knowledge sharing within and across teams.

Continuous Improvement:

• Develops ideas, recommends updates, and/or collaborates on the implementation of process improvements to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of processes, protocols, and workflows across teams, and evaluates the impact on key stakeholders. Solicits feedback from others on ideas for alternative approaches and methods for continued improvement.

Performance and Development:

• Contributes to the talent development pipeline by participating in candidate interviews, assessing candidates, and providing hiring recommendations.