Principal Engineer Jobs in San Diego, CA
Principal Engineer jobs in San Diego are in strong and consistent demand, concentrated in Sorrento Valley, UTC/La Jolla, and the Torrey Pines corridor across defense technology, biotech, telecommunications, and enterprise software. Employers hiring right now include Northrop Grumman, Qualcomm, and SAIC. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Overview
Intuit's Consumer Group is responsible for two of the leading financial products in the country: TurboTax, which helps tens of millions of people file with confidence every tax season, and Credit Karma, which gives more than 130 million members a clear, personalized view of their financial health. Both products depend on shared, resilient application infrastructure to move fast without breaking trust, and that infrastructure is what App Foundations, part of Platform Foundations within Consumer Group, is responsible for.
We're investing in a culture of "builders" by fostering an environment where innovation, creativity, and bold thinking are encouraged. The "builder" mindset is necessary for us to accelerate our move toward AI-native experiences. This requires more builders who can rapidly apply AI and emerging technologies to solve our customers' problems - across TurboTax's tax filing experiences and Credit Karma's financial health platform alike.
Responsibilities
Overall Responsibilities
- Drives velocity in the organization by accelerating customer, business, and technology outcomes by identifying and driving key opportunities across the company
- Drives significant technology initiatives end-to-end, including horizontal layers of the architecture
- Understands customer behaviors and partners with cross-functional partners to influence and drive end-to-end solutions for customer problems
- Drives design and implementation of durable software solutions that will solve critical customer problems in a fast-paced environment
- Executes with a boundaryless mindset and contributes to solutions outside of their primary area of ownership
- Creates robust, scalable, and secure technical designs, effectively implementing them to balance short-term and long-term objectives, ensuring high availability and optimal performance of applications
Passionate for continuous learning, experimenting, and applying cutting-edge technology and software paradigms to solve customer problems
Knowledge of building AI-native applications
- Guides the applicability of AI to customer problems through a deep understanding of the value and limitations of AI technologies
- Understands evaluation tools to validate and measure the accuracy of solutions
- High-level understanding of how AI models work, the different types of AI models that exist, and their pros and cons
Understanding of the latest tools and technologies that apply AI to real-world applications
Team Collaboration
- Partners with other groups both inside and outside of Intuit for cross-functional design, development, and integration
Works with cross-functional team members from Architecture, Product Management, and Operations to design, develop, test, and release features
Community
Contributes to standards, patterns, and best practices that improve the engineering communityProvides perspective on leading industry trends, recommendations on new and emerging technologies, technology prototypes, patent proposals, and engineering process improvements
Qualifications
Technical Qualifications
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Ability to drive velocity in a highly matrixed environment, partnering with numerous stakeholders
8+ years of experience developing systems or software for large business environments
5+ years of experience designing complex distributed systems, management products, or business applications
Full-stack development experience with AI technologies and tools, applying them to user experiences or backend solutions
Experience with AI technologies like SageMaker, Vertex, LangChain, Large Language Models, Prompt Engineering, DialogFlow, Python
Experience with at least one in each of the following:
Front-end technologies like React, Angular, SwiftUI (iOS), Kotlin (Android)
Back-end technologies like Java, TypeScript, Spring, Express (NodeJS)
Prior working experience in a cloud computing environment like AWS or GCP is highly desired
Prior experience working in teams that have built AI-native applications for 1+ years
BS or MS in Computer Science or related area, or equivalent experience
Leadership Qualifications
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Team player possessing strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills
Strong mentoring skills; able to influence and communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical people
Prefers working in a team and collaborates with other cross-functional partners
Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, complex technical environment
Excellent communication skills; communicates clearly, succinctly, and persuasively to all levels of employees, customers, and management, including executives
Self-starter attitude and the ability to make decisions independently
Experience driving for results across cross-functional teams while maintaining effective working relationships
Demonstrated ability to work with global teams across time zones
Intuit provides a competitive compensation package with a strong pay for performance rewards approach. This position may be eligible for a cash bonus, equity rewards and benefits, in accordance with our applicable plans and programs (see more about our compensation and benefits at Intuit®: Careers | Benefits). Pay offered is based on factors such as job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and work location. To drive ongoing fair pay for employees, Intuit conducts regular comparisons across categories of ethnicity and gender.
San Diego $247,500 - $335,000
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Find Principal Engineer JobsPrincipal Engineer Job Market in San Diego
Who's Hiring
- Northrop Grumman530

- Qualcomm69

- SAIC38

- ASML15

- Cubic Corporation15

Principal Engineer Jobs in San Diego: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a principal engineer job in San Diego?
The strongest path into a principal engineer role in San Diego runs through the city's defense and aerospace contractors, biotech firms, and wireless technology companies, which cluster in Sorrento Valley, UTC, and the Torrey Pines area. Candidates who combine deep technical specialization with cross-functional leadership experience stand out here. Demonstrating system-level ownership on complex programs gives you a clear edge over generalist applicants in this market.
Which companies hire principal engineers in San Diego?
San Diego principal engineer roles are posted by Northrop Grumman, Qualcomm, and SAIC and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. The local market is anchored by large defense primes, wireless and semiconductor firms, and a growing layer of biotech and healthtech companies, all of which hire principal engineers at multiple seniority levels.
Are there remote principal engineer jobs in San Diego?
Yes, though remote availability varies significantly by specialization. About 55% of principal engineer openings tied to San Diego are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, with the highest share in software-focused and cloud infrastructure roles. Defense and hardware-intensive positions in the San Diego market tend to require on-site presence due to facility access requirements.
How can I get a principal engineer job in San Diego with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is moving up from a senior engineer role inside a San Diego company that promotes from within, particularly at mid-size defense contractors and biotech firms that regularly grow their own technical leaders. Contributing to large-scale system design projects and taking ownership of cross-team deliverables is what local hiring managers look for when evaluating engineers for principal-level consideration.
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