Principal Engineer Jobs in Boston, MA
Principal Engineer jobs in Boston are concentrated in the Seaport District, Kendall Square adjacent corridors, and the Back Bay, across healthtech, enterprise software, defense technology, and biotech. Employers hiring right now include PTC, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Motional. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
Find Principal Engineer JobsOverview
Open roles209+
Top employerPTC
Work type61% Hybrid
Top credentialBachelor's degree
Companies hiring31
Showing 5 of 209+ Principal Engineer jobs
Principal Data Engineer - QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
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Added 1d ago
McKinsey & Company
Principal Data Engineer - QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 1d ago
K
Principal Embedded Software Engineer
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K
Added 1d ago
K&k Global Talents
Principal Embedded Software Engineer
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 1d ago
Principal Algorithm and Signal Processing Engineer
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Added 3d ago
STR
Principal Algorithm and Signal Processing Engineer
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 3d ago
Principal Engineer
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Added 3d ago
Motional
Principal Engineer
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 3d ago
Principal Electrical Engineer
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Re:Build Manufacturing
Principal Electrical Engineer
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 3d ago
Added 1d ago
Principal Data Engineer - QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
McKinsey & Company·Boston, Massachusetts
Job functions:
Experience equivalent to degree accepted
Job Description
Job ID: 114506
- Boston
- Chicago
- New York City
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Washington DC
Do you want to do work that matters, alongside supportive leaders who will help you grow faster than you ever thought possible? Are you a creative problem-solver who is energized by challenges? You’ve come to the right place.
YOUR IMPACT
You will lead technical teams, architect data platforms, and build scalable pipelines while mentoring colleagues and collaborating with clients at all levels.
You’ll tackle impactful challenges, contribute to R&D, and grow as a leader by working with diverse experts on cutting-edge AI projects across industries.
You will lead multiple technical teams and own the technology stack for enterprise data and AI platforms. You’ll design and build robust, scalable, and reproducible data pipelines for machine learning while ensuring information security standards are upheld. Additionally, you’ll mentor junior colleagues, contribute to R&D projects, and drive innovation within the QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey Data Engineering community.
Your work will address real-world challenges across industries. Partnering with QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey and QuantumBlack Labs teams, you’ll help create innovative machine learning systems that accelerate AI adoption and solve business problems at speed and scale, enabling clients to achieve meaningful and lasting impact.
You will be based in one of our North America offices as part of our global Data Engineering community. You’ll work in cross-functional Agile teams alongside Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and industry experts to deliver advanced analytics solutions. Collaborating with clients from data owners to C-level executives, you’ll help architect impactful solutions that solve complex business problems and drive value.
You will be in an exceptional environment to grow as a technologist and leader. You’ll develop expertise at the intersection of technology and business by tackling diverse challenges. Surrounded by inspiring, multidisciplinary teams, you’ll gain a holistic understanding of AI while collaborating with some of the best design, technical, and business talent in the world.
YOUR GROWTH
Driving lasting impact and building long-term capabilities with our clients is not easy work. You are the kind of person who thrives in a high performance/high reward culture - doing hard things, picking yourself up when you stumble, and having the resilience to try another way forward.
In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we'll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities you need to become a stronger leader faster than you ever thought possible. Your colleagues—at all levels—will invest deeply in your development, just as much as they invest in delivering exceptional results for clients. Every day, you'll receive apprenticeship, coaching, and exposure that will accelerate your growth in ways you won’t find anywhere else.
When you join us, you will have:
- Continuous learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
- A voice that matters: From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions, all while upholding our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
- Global community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions for our clients. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- World-class benefits: On top of a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we provide a comprehensive benefits package to enable holistic well-being for you and your family.
YOUR QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS
- Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent experience
- 10+ years relevant professional experience
- Ability to scope projects, define workstreams, and translate roadmaps into sprint goals, milestones, and deliverables within agile and iterative team environments
- Proven experience architecting and building enterprise data and AI platforms as well as scalable data pipelines for advanced analytics use cases operating in production
- Passion for and track record of effectively leading and mentoring more junior colleagues
- Expertise in implementing software engineering best practices to drive enterprise-wide improvement, including DevOps, DataOps, and MLOps
- Strong software engineering and data engineering expertise, including distributed computing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Dask), cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), analytics libraries (e.g., pandas, NumPy, matplotlib), and modern data platforms and orchestration tools such as Databricks, Airflow, SQL, PySpark, Kedro, and RAPIDS
- Ability to write clean, maintainable, scalable, and robust code in object-oriented languages such as Python, Scala, or Java, and experience supporting the development of junior engineers through collaborative code reviews
- Extensive commercial client-facing or senior stakeholder management experience
- Exceptional time management to meet your responsibilities in a complex and largely autonomous work environment
- Willingness to travel
- Strong communication skills with the ability to adjust your style to suit different perspectives and seniority levels
Please review the additional requirements regarding essential job functions of McKinsey colleagues.
Our unwavering commitment to integrity drives everything we do, guiding us to always act in the best interests of our clients, our people, and the communities we serve.
McKinsey & Company
Principal Data Engineer - QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey
Boston, Massachusetts
Added 1d ago
Job functions:
Experience equivalent to degree accepted
Job Description
Job ID: 114506
- Boston
- Chicago
- New York City
- San Francisco
- Seattle
- Washington DC
Do you want to do work that matters, alongside supportive leaders who will help you grow faster than you ever thought possible? Are you a creative problem-solver who is energized by challenges? You’ve come to the right place.
YOUR IMPACT
You will lead technical teams, architect data platforms, and build scalable pipelines while mentoring colleagues and collaborating with clients at all levels.
You’ll tackle impactful challenges, contribute to R&D, and grow as a leader by working with diverse experts on cutting-edge AI projects across industries.
You will lead multiple technical teams and own the technology stack for enterprise data and AI platforms. You’ll design and build robust, scalable, and reproducible data pipelines for machine learning while ensuring information security standards are upheld. Additionally, you’ll mentor junior colleagues, contribute to R&D projects, and drive innovation within the QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey Data Engineering community.
Your work will address real-world challenges across industries. Partnering with QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey and QuantumBlack Labs teams, you’ll help create innovative machine learning systems that accelerate AI adoption and solve business problems at speed and scale, enabling clients to achieve meaningful and lasting impact.
You will be based in one of our North America offices as part of our global Data Engineering community. You’ll work in cross-functional Agile teams alongside Data Scientists, Machine Learning Engineers, and industry experts to deliver advanced analytics solutions. Collaborating with clients from data owners to C-level executives, you’ll help architect impactful solutions that solve complex business problems and drive value.
You will be in an exceptional environment to grow as a technologist and leader. You’ll develop expertise at the intersection of technology and business by tackling diverse challenges. Surrounded by inspiring, multidisciplinary teams, you’ll gain a holistic understanding of AI while collaborating with some of the best design, technical, and business talent in the world.
YOUR GROWTH
Driving lasting impact and building long-term capabilities with our clients is not easy work. You are the kind of person who thrives in a high performance/high reward culture - doing hard things, picking yourself up when you stumble, and having the resilience to try another way forward.
In return for your drive, determination, and curiosity, we'll provide the resources, mentorship, and opportunities you need to become a stronger leader faster than you ever thought possible. Your colleagues—at all levels—will invest deeply in your development, just as much as they invest in delivering exceptional results for clients. Every day, you'll receive apprenticeship, coaching, and exposure that will accelerate your growth in ways you won’t find anywhere else.
When you join us, you will have:
- Continuous learning: Our learning and apprenticeship culture, backed by structured programs, is all about helping you grow while creating an environment where feedback is clear, actionable, and focused on your development. The real magic happens when you take the input from others to heart and embrace the fast-paced learning experience, owning your journey.
- A voice that matters: From day one, we value your ideas and contributions. You’ll make a tangible impact by offering innovative ideas and practical solutions, all while upholding our unwavering commitment to ethics and integrity. We not only encourage diverse perspectives, but they are critical in driving us toward the best possible outcomes.
- Global community: With colleagues across 65+ countries and over 100 different nationalities, our firm’s diversity fuels creativity and helps us come up with the best solutions for our clients. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to learn from exceptional colleagues with diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- World-class benefits: On top of a competitive salary (based on your location, experience, and skills), we provide a comprehensive benefits package to enable holistic well-being for you and your family.
YOUR QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS
- Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or equivalent experience
- 10+ years relevant professional experience
- Ability to scope projects, define workstreams, and translate roadmaps into sprint goals, milestones, and deliverables within agile and iterative team environments
- Proven experience architecting and building enterprise data and AI platforms as well as scalable data pipelines for advanced analytics use cases operating in production
- Passion for and track record of effectively leading and mentoring more junior colleagues
- Expertise in implementing software engineering best practices to drive enterprise-wide improvement, including DevOps, DataOps, and MLOps
- Strong software engineering and data engineering expertise, including distributed computing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Dask), cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), analytics libraries (e.g., pandas, NumPy, matplotlib), and modern data platforms and orchestration tools such as Databricks, Airflow, SQL, PySpark, Kedro, and RAPIDS
- Ability to write clean, maintainable, scalable, and robust code in object-oriented languages such as Python, Scala, or Java, and experience supporting the development of junior engineers through collaborative code reviews
- Extensive commercial client-facing or senior stakeholder management experience
- Exceptional time management to meet your responsibilities in a complex and largely autonomous work environment
- Willingness to travel
- Strong communication skills with the ability to adjust your style to suit different perspectives and seniority levels
Please review the additional requirements regarding essential job functions of McKinsey colleagues.
Our unwavering commitment to integrity drives everything we do, guiding us to always act in the best interests of our clients, our people, and the communities we serve.
See All 209+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Boston
Find roles in Boston that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find Principal Engineer JobsPrincipal Engineer Job Market in Boston
Who's Hiring
- PTC20
- Liberty Mutual Insurance20
- Motional15
- Klaviyo10
- athenahealth10
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Science & Research
Principal Engineer Jobs in Boston: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a principal engineer job in Boston?
Focus your search on Boston's Seaport District, Kendall Square corridor, and Back Bay, where healthtech, defense technology, enterprise software, and biotech firms concentrate their engineering leadership hiring. Candidates with a history of driving system architecture decisions at scale stand out here. Demonstrating cross-functional influence, not just individual technical output, is what separates principal-level hires from senior engineers in Boston's market.
Which companies hire principal engineers in Boston?
Employers hiring principal engineers in Boston right now include PTC, Liberty Mutual Insurance, and Motional, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Boston's hiring mix skews toward growth-stage healthtech companies, established defense contractors with large engineering organizations, and enterprise software firms with significant local R&D footprints.
Are there remote principal engineer jobs in Boston?
Yes, though availability depends heavily on the role: principal engineers in software architecture and platform engineering tend to work remotely more often, while those embedded in hardware, lab, or defense programs are almost always on-site. About 87% of principal engineer openings tied to Boston are remote or hybrid as of November 2026. Software-focused roles in Boston's healthtech and enterprise sectors offer the strongest remote options locally.
How can I get a principal engineer job in Boston with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path is landing a senior engineer role at a Boston-area growth-stage startup or mid-size healthtech company, where the gap between senior and principal moves faster than at large enterprises. Boston's biotech and defense corridors also hire engineers into lead roles with defined advancement tracks. Building visibility by contributing to local technical communities or open-source projects used by Boston employers helps accelerate that progression.
Which industries hire the most principal engineers in Boston?
Boston principal engineer roles concentrate in Technology & Software and Science & Research, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Boston's deep research institution ecosystem, anchored by major hospitals and universities, feeds a persistent pipeline of healthtech and biotech companies that require experienced engineering leadership to bring complex products to scale.
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See All 209+ Principal Engineer Jobs in Boston
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