Principal Engineer Jobs in Colorado
Principal Engineer jobs in Colorado are concentrated in Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs, where aerospace, defense, and technology companies maintain deep engineering workforces. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, and Google have significant Colorado operations and consistently recruit principal engineers across software systems, embedded hardware, and cloud infrastructure disciplines. Colorado sits among the most active markets in the country for senior engineering talent, reflecting the density of both established defense contractors and high-growth tech firms along the Front Range. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Showing 5 of 170+ Principal Engineer jobs
This senior level employee is primarily responsible for translating business requirements and functional specifications into software solutions, for contributing to and leveraging the technical direction for the development of integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions, and for serving as a technical expert for project teams while providing consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed.
Essential Responsibilities:
- Conducts or oversees business-specific projects by applying deep expertise in subject area; promoting adherence to all procedures and policies; developing work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; determining and carrying out processes and methodologies; coordinating and delegating resources to accomplish organizational goals; partnering internally and externally to make effective business decisions; solving complex problems; escalating issues or risks, as appropriate; monitoring progress and results; recognizing and capitalizing on improvement opportunities; evaluating recommendations made; and influencing the completion of project tasks by others.
- Practices self-leadership and promotes learning in others by building relationships with cross-functional stakeholders; communicating information and providing advice to drive projects forward; influencing team members within assigned unit; listening and responding to, seeking, and addressing performance feedback; adapting to competing demands and new responsibilities; providing feedback to others, including upward feedback to leadership and mentoring junior team members; creating and executing plans to capitalize on strengths and improve opportunity areas; and adapting to and learning from change, difficulties, and feedback.
- As part of the IT Engineering job family, this position is responsible for leveraging DEVOPS, and both Waterfall and Agile practices, to design, develop, and deliver resilient, secure, multi-channel, high-volume, high-transaction, on/off-premise, cloud-based solutions.
- Provides insight into recommendations for technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Translates business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
- Ensures appropriate translation of business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
- Serves as an expert for innovative technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Facilitates and serves as a technical expert for project teams throughout the release schedule of business and enterprise software solutions.
- Builds and maintains trusting relationships with internal customers, third party vendors, and senior management to ensure the alignment, buy-in, and support of diverse project stakeholders.
- Recommends complex technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Collaborates with architects and/or software consultants to ensure functional specifications are converted into flexible, scalable, and maintainable solution designs.
- Provides expertise and guidance to team members for systems incident responses for complex issues.
- Provides implementation and post-implementation triage and support of business software solutions by programming and/or configuring enhancements to new or packaged-based systems and applications.
- Reviews and validates technical specifications and documentation.
- Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions to support technical solutions while incorporating architectural designs.
- Supports component integration testing (CIT) and user acceptance testing (UAT) for application initiatives by providing triage, attending test team meetings, keeping the QC up-to-date, performing fixes and unit testing, providing insight to testing teams in order to ensure the appropriate depth of test coverage, and supporting the development of proper documentation.
- Leads systems incident support and troubleshooting for complex and non-complex issues.
- Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions, as required, to support technical solutions serving as an escalation point for complex or unresolved issues related to requirements translation.
- Develops and validates complex testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
- Participates in all software development lifecycle phases by applying comprehensive understanding of company methodology, policies, standards, and internal and external controls.
- Develops, configures, or modifies basic to moderately complex integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions within various computing environments by designing and coding component-based applications using programming languages.
- Provides consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed with insight into industry best practices, strategies, and architectures.
- Builds partnerships with IT teams and vendors to ensure written code adheres to company architectural standards, design patterns, and technical specifications.
- Leads the development, validation, and execution of testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
- Leads, mentors, and trains other technical resources to develop software applications.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Core)
- Ambiguity/Uncertainty Management
- Attention to Detail
- Business Knowledge
- Communication
- Critical Thinking
- Cross-Group Collaboration
- Decision Making
- Dependability
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Support
- Drives Results
- Facilitation Skills
- Health Care Industry
- Influencing Others
- Integrity
- Learning Agility
- Organizational Savvy
- Problem Solving
- Short- and Long-term Learning & Recall
- Teamwork
- Topic-Specific Communication
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Functional)
- Acts with Compassion
- Analytical Skills
- Client Focus
- Crisis Incident Management
- Debugging and Troubleshooting
- Demonstrating Personal Flexibility
- Innovative Mindset
- Managing Diverse Relationships
- Organizational Skills
- Prioritization
- Relationship Building
- Technical Communication
Minimum Qualifications:
- Minimum five (5) years experience working on project(s) involving the implementation of solutions applying development life cycles (e.g., SDLC).
- Minimum two (2) years in a technical leadership role with or without direct reports.
- Bachelors degree in Computer Science, CIS, or related field and Minimum eight (8) years experience in software development or a related field. Additional equivalent work experience may be substituted for the degree requirement.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Two (2) years of work experience in a role requiring interaction with senior leadership (e.g., Director level and above)
- Four (4) years experience in systems analysis, including defining technical requirements and performing high level design for complex solutions.
PrimaryLocation : Colorado,Greenwood Village,Greenwood Plaza IT
HoursPerWeek : 40
Shift : Day
Workdays : Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
WorkingHoursStart : 08:00 AM
WorkingHoursEnd : 04:00 PM
Job Schedule : Full-time
Job Type : Standard
Employee Status : Regular
Employee Group/Union Affiliation : NUE-IT-01|NUE|Non Union Employee
Job Level : Individual Contributor
Job Category : Information Technology,Digital
Department : KPIT ADMIN - KPD CPE BCE - 9601
Travel : No
Kaiser Permanente is an equal opportunity employer committed to fair, respectful, and inclusive workplaces. Applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic or status.
Colorado Residents: In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
This senior level employee is primarily responsible for translating business requirements and functional specifications into software solutions, for contributing to and leveraging the technical direction for the development of integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions, and for serving as a technical expert for project teams while providing consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed.
Essential Responsibilities:
- Conducts or oversees business-specific projects by applying deep expertise in subject area; promoting adherence to all procedures and policies; developing work plans to meet business priorities and deadlines; determining and carrying out processes and methodologies; coordinating and delegating resources to accomplish organizational goals; partnering internally and externally to make effective business decisions; solving complex problems; escalating issues or risks, as appropriate; monitoring progress and results; recognizing and capitalizing on improvement opportunities; evaluating recommendations made; and influencing the completion of project tasks by others.
- Practices self-leadership and promotes learning in others by building relationships with cross-functional stakeholders; communicating information and providing advice to drive projects forward; influencing team members within assigned unit; listening and responding to, seeking, and addressing performance feedback; adapting to competing demands and new responsibilities; providing feedback to others, including upward feedback to leadership and mentoring junior team members; creating and executing plans to capitalize on strengths and improve opportunity areas; and adapting to and learning from change, difficulties, and feedback.
- As part of the IT Engineering job family, this position is responsible for leveraging DEVOPS, and both Waterfall and Agile practices, to design, develop, and deliver resilient, secure, multi-channel, high-volume, high-transaction, on/off-premise, cloud-based solutions.
- Provides insight into recommendations for technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Translates business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
- Ensures appropriate translation of business requirements and functional specifications into physical program designs, code modules, stable application systems, and software solutions by partnering with Business Analysts and other team members to understand business needs and functional specifications.
- Serves as an expert for innovative technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Facilitates and serves as a technical expert for project teams throughout the release schedule of business and enterprise software solutions.
- Builds and maintains trusting relationships with internal customers, third party vendors, and senior management to ensure the alignment, buy-in, and support of diverse project stakeholders.
- Recommends complex technical solutions that meet design and functional needs.
- Collaborates with architects and/or software consultants to ensure functional specifications are converted into flexible, scalable, and maintainable solution designs.
- Provides expertise and guidance to team members for systems incident responses for complex issues.
- Provides implementation and post-implementation triage and support of business software solutions by programming and/or configuring enhancements to new or packaged-based systems and applications.
- Reviews and validates technical specifications and documentation.
- Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions to support technical solutions while incorporating architectural designs.
- Supports component integration testing (CIT) and user acceptance testing (UAT) for application initiatives by providing triage, attending test team meetings, keeping the QC up-to-date, performing fixes and unit testing, providing insight to testing teams in order to ensure the appropriate depth of test coverage, and supporting the development of proper documentation.
- Leads systems incident support and troubleshooting for complex and non-complex issues.
- Identifies specific interfaces, methods, parameters, procedures, and functions, as required, to support technical solutions serving as an escalation point for complex or unresolved issues related to requirements translation.
- Develops and validates complex testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
- Participates in all software development lifecycle phases by applying comprehensive understanding of company methodology, policies, standards, and internal and external controls.
- Develops, configures, or modifies basic to moderately complex integrated business and/or enterprise application solutions within various computing environments by designing and coding component-based applications using programming languages.
- Provides consultation to help ensure new and existing software solutions are developed with insight into industry best practices, strategies, and architectures.
- Builds partnerships with IT teams and vendors to ensure written code adheres to company architectural standards, design patterns, and technical specifications.
- Leads the development, validation, and execution of testing scenarios to identify application errors and ensure software solutions meet functional specifications.
- Leads, mentors, and trains other technical resources to develop software applications.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Core)
- Ambiguity/Uncertainty Management
- Attention to Detail
- Business Knowledge
- Communication
- Critical Thinking
- Cross-Group Collaboration
- Decision Making
- Dependability
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Support
- Drives Results
- Facilitation Skills
- Health Care Industry
- Influencing Others
- Integrity
- Learning Agility
- Organizational Savvy
- Problem Solving
- Short- and Long-term Learning & Recall
- Teamwork
- Topic-Specific Communication
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: (Functional)
- Acts with Compassion
- Analytical Skills
- Client Focus
- Crisis Incident Management
- Debugging and Troubleshooting
- Demonstrating Personal Flexibility
- Innovative Mindset
- Managing Diverse Relationships
- Organizational Skills
- Prioritization
- Relationship Building
- Technical Communication
Minimum Qualifications:
- Minimum five (5) years experience working on project(s) involving the implementation of solutions applying development life cycles (e.g., SDLC).
- Minimum two (2) years in a technical leadership role with or without direct reports.
- Bachelors degree in Computer Science, CIS, or related field and Minimum eight (8) years experience in software development or a related field. Additional equivalent work experience may be substituted for the degree requirement.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Two (2) years of work experience in a role requiring interaction with senior leadership (e.g., Director level and above)
- Four (4) years experience in systems analysis, including defining technical requirements and performing high level design for complex solutions.
PrimaryLocation : Colorado,Greenwood Village,Greenwood Plaza IT
HoursPerWeek : 40
Shift : Day
Workdays : Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
WorkingHoursStart : 08:00 AM
WorkingHoursEnd : 04:00 PM
Job Schedule : Full-time
Job Type : Standard
Employee Status : Regular
Employee Group/Union Affiliation : NUE-IT-01|NUE|Non Union Employee
Job Level : Individual Contributor
Job Category : Information Technology,Digital
Department : KPIT ADMIN - KPD CPE BCE - 9601
Travel : No
Kaiser Permanente is an equal opportunity employer committed to fair, respectful, and inclusive workplaces. Applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic or status.
Colorado Residents: In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
See All 170+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Colorado
Find roles in Colorado that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Principal Engineer JobsPrincipal Engineer Jobs by City in Colorado
Where Colorado roles are concentrated, by current openings.
Principal Engineer Job Market in Colorado
A snapshot from current Colorado openings, updated as new roles post.
Who's Hiring
- BAE Systems USA34
- Northrop Grumman28
- Blue Origin6
- Sierra Space6
- SAIC5
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Electronics & Hardware
What Colorado Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in principal engineer jobs across Colorado.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or a related engineering discipline
- Ten or more years of progressive engineering experience with demonstrated technical leadership
- Proven ability to architect and own large-scale systems across the full software development lifecycle
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving engineering standards across cross-functional teams
- Proficiency in cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure, or embedded systems for defense and aerospace roles
- Active security clearance or eligibility for one, required by many Colorado defense and aerospace employers
Principal Engineer Jobs in Colorado: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a principal engineer in Colorado?
Becoming a principal engineer in Colorado typically follows a path from bachelor's or master's degree in engineering or computer science through progressive roles as a software engineer, senior engineer, and staff engineer before reaching the principal level. Colorado employers in aerospace and defense frequently require or prefer candidates who can obtain a security clearance, which means a background that supports federal adjudication. No state-issued engineering license is required for software-focused principal engineer roles, though candidates targeting civil or systems engineering positions may pursue a Colorado Professional Engineer registration through the Colorado State Board of Licensure for Architects, Professional Engineers, and Professional Land Surveyors.
Which companies hire principal engineers in Colorado?
Employers hiring principal engineers in Colorado right now include BAE Systems USA, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Colorado's concentration of aerospace primes, federal contractors, and technology companies along the Front Range keeps demand for principal-level engineering talent consistently high across both defense and commercial sectors.
Which Colorado cities have the most principal engineer jobs?
Denver, Colorado Springs, and Broomfield account for the largest share of principal engineer openings in Colorado. Denver anchors demand through its technology and corporate headquarters presence, Boulder draws heavily from the software and deep-tech startup ecosystem, and Colorado Springs reflects the significant concentration of defense contractors and military installations that generate steady principal engineering hiring.
Are there remote principal engineer jobs in Colorado?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 52% of principal engineer openings tied to Colorado are remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting the desk-based nature of most software and systems architecture work. The parts of the role most commonly offered remotely are pure software architecture, platform engineering, and cloud infrastructure, while principal engineers supporting defense programs with classified environments are almost always required on-site.
How can I get hired as a principal engineer in Colorado with little or no experience?
The most realistic path for candidates without principal-level experience is to move into a senior engineer role first and build a record of system ownership and cross-team technical leadership that Colorado employers recognize as principal-ready. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Google all operate new-grad and rotational engineering programs in Colorado that place early-career engineers on paths toward senior and staff levels. Lateral movement from roles like solutions architect, tech lead, or staff engineer is a common entry point. Candidates who accelerate this path typically hold a master's degree, can qualify for a security clearance, or maintain a strong portfolio of open-source or systems design work that demonstrates independent technical judgment.
Where can I find and apply to principal engineer jobs in Colorado?
You can find and apply to principal engineer jobs in Colorado on Migrate Mate, which lists current Colorado openings updated regularly. Search the listings, find the roles that fit your background and the location or remote arrangement you need, and apply directly to the ones that match. No sign-up is required to see the openings.
See All 170+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Colorado
Find roles in Colorado that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Principal Engineer Jobs