Principal Site Reliability Engineer Jobs
Principal Site Reliability Engineer jobs are open across cloud infrastructure, fintech, healthtech, and enterprise software, from senior SRE to staff and principal levels, with specializations in platform engineering, incident management, and observability. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Showing 5 of 83+ Principal Site Reliability Engineer jobs
Who We Are:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today’s complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what’s next. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good. If you are looking to stretch and grow your career our culture will embrace you. Open up opportunities with HPE.
Job Description:
Role overview
We are seeking a Principal Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Kubernetes, distributed systems, and highly available infrastructure to help evolve and operate the Object Storage platform.
This role will own the most complex platform-level technical challenges, including Kubernetes scheduling and resource management, pod failover, service discovery and load balancing, control-plane availability, node failure recovery, timeout behavior, and system resilience during degraded operating conditions.
The successful candidate will work across engineering teams to establish clear ownership, diagnose complex production issues, guide architectural decisions, and build scalable, reliable platform capabilities. This is a hands-on technical leadership role that requires both deep implementation experience and the ability to influence engineering practices across the organization.
Key responsibilities
- Serve as the senior technical authority for Kubernetes platform architecture, reliability, and operational behavior.
-
Own the investigation and resolution of complex issues involving:
- Pod failover and rescheduling
- Service availability and load balancing
- Control Plane operation as well as Node failover
- Network, API, and service timeouts
- Resource requests, limits, quotas, scheduling, affinity, taints, tolerations, and workload pinning
- Cluster capacity, performance, and scaling
- Distributed-system failure modes and recovery behavior
- Define and drive improvements to Kubernetes high availability, fault tolerance, and disaster-recovery strategies.
- Establish clear technical ownership and operating models for platform capabilities.
- Lead architecture, design, and implementation of platform improvements across multiple engineering teams.
- Develop repeatable approaches for diagnosing failures across application, Kubernetes, networking, storage, and infrastructure layers.
- Improve observability, including metrics, logs, traces, alerts, dashboards, and health indicators for platform services.
- Define and monitor service-level objectives and reliability measures for platform components.
- Lead or support major incident response, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action programs.
- Identify systemic issues rather than treating incidents as isolated events.
- Create technical standards, reference architectures, runbooks, and operational best practices.
- Mentor senior engineers and raise the organization’s expertise in Kubernetes and distributed systems.
- Partner with application, infrastructure, networking, security, and operations teams to resolve cross-functional issues.
- Evaluate new Kubernetes capabilities and platform technologies and determine where they provide meaningful value.
- Balance short-term incident resolution with long-term architectural improvements.
Required qualifications
- Significant experience designing, building, and operating production Kubernetes platforms.
-
Deep understanding of Kubernetes architecture and core components, including:
- API server and control-plane services
- Scheduler and controller manager
- Nodes, kubelet, and container runtimes
- Services, endpoints, ingress, and load balancing
- Resource requests and limits
- Quality of Service classes
- Affinity, anti-affinity, taints, tolerations, and topology constraints
- Pod disruption budgets and workload availability
- Kubelet and CRI (containerd)
- Strong knowledge of high-availability and failure-recovery patterns for distributed systems.
- Demonstrated experience troubleshooting complex production failures involving Kubernetes, networking, infrastructure, and application services.
- Experience diagnosing Kubernetes failover behavior, service timeouts, partial failures, network partitions, and degraded cluster states.
- Experience with Kubernetes cluster upgrade process.
- Strong understanding of Linux systems, networking, DNS, TCP/IP, containers, and storage fundamentals.
- Experience with cloud or on-premises infrastructure and infrastructure-as-code practices.
- Proficiency in Go, Python, and Bash programming or scripting language.
- Experience developing automation, platform tooling, or operational frameworks.
- Strong observability and reliability engineering experience using metrics, logs, traces, alerting, and performance analysis.
- Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives across organizational boundaries.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to operate effectively during high-severity incidents and drive issues through root cause and permanent resolution.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience contributing to or extending Kubernetes, container-runtime, networking, or infrastructure projects.
- Experience with Kubernetes distributions such as EKS, AKS, GKE, OpenShift, or upstream Kubernetes.
- Experience with service meshes, ingress controllers, CNI plugins, CSI storage systems, or cluster-autoscaling technologies.
- Experience with distributed databases, consensus systems, or control-plane technologies such as etcd.
- Experience designing multi-cluster, multi-region, or edge-oriented Kubernetes environments.
- Knowledge of Linux performance analysis, kernel behavior, and container isolation.
- Experience with chaos engineering, failure injection, load testing, and resilience testing.
- Experience establishing SLOs, error budgets, production-readiness reviews, and reliability governance.
- Experience working in an environment with embedded, edge, fleet, or geographically distributed systems.
- Familiarity with GitOps and deployment technologies such as Argo CD, Flux, Helm, or similar tools.
- Relevant Kubernetes or cloud certifications, such as CKA, CKAD, or equivalent practical experience.
Principal-level expectations
The person hired into this role should be expected to:
- Own problems that cross team and technology boundaries.
- Make architecture decisions that affect the broader platform and product roadmap.
- Establish technical direction rather than only implement assigned designs.
- Drive ambiguous, high-impact issues from symptoms through root cause and permanent resolution.
- Create reusable platform capabilities and engineering standards.
- Influence without relying on direct authority.
- Mentor other senior engineers and improve the organization’s technical maturity.
- Remain hands-on enough to debug systems, prototype solutions, review code, and validate designs.
Accessibility
HPE is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible workplace and encourages applications from all qualified individuals, including those with disabilities. If you believe you require accommodation during any stage of the application or interview process, please submit your request by completing our secure form linked here.
Note: This option is reserved for applicants needing assistance/reasonable accommodation related to a disability.
What We Can Offer You:
Health & Wellbeing
We strive to provide our team members and their loved ones with a comprehensive suite of benefits that supports their physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.
Personal & Professional Development
We also invest in your career because the better you are, the better we all are. We have specific programs catered to helping you reach any career goals you have — whether you want to become a knowledge expert in your field or apply your skills to another division.
Unconditional Inclusion
We are unconditionally inclusive in the way we work and celebrate individual uniqueness. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good.
Let's Stay Connected:
Follow @HPECareers on Instagram to see the latest on people, culture and tech at HPE.
Job:
EngineeringJob Level:
TCP_05
– United States of America: Annual Salary USD 165,500 - 313,500 in Colorado // 157,000 - 361,000 in North Carolina
The listed salary range reflects base salary. Variable incentives may also be offered."
Information about employee benefits offered in the US can be found at https://myhperewards.com/main/new-hire-enrollment.html
The estimated job application period closure is January 11 2027; this timeline is provided for transparency and internal planning purposes.HPE is an Equal Employment Opportunity/ Veterans/Disabled/LGBT employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or any other protected category, and all decisions we make are made on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. Our goal is to be one global team that is representative of our customers, in an inclusive environment where we can continue to innovate and grow together. Please click here: Equal Employment Opportunity.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is EEO Protected Veteran/ Individual with Disabilities.
HPE will comply with all applicable laws related to employer use of arrest and conviction records, including laws requiring employers to consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories.
Recruitment Fraud Alert
We have become aware of an increase in fraudulent recruitment activities in which individuals impersonate our company or authorized recruitment agencies to offer fake employment opportunities. These scams may occur through false websites, emails, social media, or chat-based applications and often aim to obtain personal information or money. Please note that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), its direct and indirect subsidiaries and affiliated companies, and its authorized recruitment agencies/vendors will never charge a candidate a registration fee, hiring fee, or any other fee in connection with its recruitment and hiring process. We also never request personal information such as back account details, Social Security numbers, or national IDs via social media or chat applications.
All legitimate job opportunities will come through official company channels, and candidates are responsible for verifying the credentials of any third party claiming to represent the company. Any reliance on fraudulent communication is at the individual’s own risk, and HPE disclaims legal liability for any resulting damages. If you suspect recruitment fraud, do not share personal information or make any payments and report the incident to your local authorities immediately.
Who We Are:
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today’s complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what’s next. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good. If you are looking to stretch and grow your career our culture will embrace you. Open up opportunities with HPE.
Job Description:
Role overview
We are seeking a Principal Platform Engineer with deep expertise in Kubernetes, distributed systems, and highly available infrastructure to help evolve and operate the Object Storage platform.
This role will own the most complex platform-level technical challenges, including Kubernetes scheduling and resource management, pod failover, service discovery and load balancing, control-plane availability, node failure recovery, timeout behavior, and system resilience during degraded operating conditions.
The successful candidate will work across engineering teams to establish clear ownership, diagnose complex production issues, guide architectural decisions, and build scalable, reliable platform capabilities. This is a hands-on technical leadership role that requires both deep implementation experience and the ability to influence engineering practices across the organization.
Key responsibilities
- Serve as the senior technical authority for Kubernetes platform architecture, reliability, and operational behavior.
-
Own the investigation and resolution of complex issues involving:
- Pod failover and rescheduling
- Service availability and load balancing
- Control Plane operation as well as Node failover
- Network, API, and service timeouts
- Resource requests, limits, quotas, scheduling, affinity, taints, tolerations, and workload pinning
- Cluster capacity, performance, and scaling
- Distributed-system failure modes and recovery behavior
- Define and drive improvements to Kubernetes high availability, fault tolerance, and disaster-recovery strategies.
- Establish clear technical ownership and operating models for platform capabilities.
- Lead architecture, design, and implementation of platform improvements across multiple engineering teams.
- Develop repeatable approaches for diagnosing failures across application, Kubernetes, networking, storage, and infrastructure layers.
- Improve observability, including metrics, logs, traces, alerts, dashboards, and health indicators for platform services.
- Define and monitor service-level objectives and reliability measures for platform components.
- Lead or support major incident response, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action programs.
- Identify systemic issues rather than treating incidents as isolated events.
- Create technical standards, reference architectures, runbooks, and operational best practices.
- Mentor senior engineers and raise the organization’s expertise in Kubernetes and distributed systems.
- Partner with application, infrastructure, networking, security, and operations teams to resolve cross-functional issues.
- Evaluate new Kubernetes capabilities and platform technologies and determine where they provide meaningful value.
- Balance short-term incident resolution with long-term architectural improvements.
Required qualifications
- Significant experience designing, building, and operating production Kubernetes platforms.
-
Deep understanding of Kubernetes architecture and core components, including:
- API server and control-plane services
- Scheduler and controller manager
- Nodes, kubelet, and container runtimes
- Services, endpoints, ingress, and load balancing
- Resource requests and limits
- Quality of Service classes
- Affinity, anti-affinity, taints, tolerations, and topology constraints
- Pod disruption budgets and workload availability
- Kubelet and CRI (containerd)
- Strong knowledge of high-availability and failure-recovery patterns for distributed systems.
- Demonstrated experience troubleshooting complex production failures involving Kubernetes, networking, infrastructure, and application services.
- Experience diagnosing Kubernetes failover behavior, service timeouts, partial failures, network partitions, and degraded cluster states.
- Experience with Kubernetes cluster upgrade process.
- Strong understanding of Linux systems, networking, DNS, TCP/IP, containers, and storage fundamentals.
- Experience with cloud or on-premises infrastructure and infrastructure-as-code practices.
- Proficiency in Go, Python, and Bash programming or scripting language.
- Experience developing automation, platform tooling, or operational frameworks.
- Strong observability and reliability engineering experience using metrics, logs, traces, alerting, and performance analysis.
- Demonstrated ability to lead complex technical initiatives across organizational boundaries.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical issues to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to operate effectively during high-severity incidents and drive issues through root cause and permanent resolution.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience contributing to or extending Kubernetes, container-runtime, networking, or infrastructure projects.
- Experience with Kubernetes distributions such as EKS, AKS, GKE, OpenShift, or upstream Kubernetes.
- Experience with service meshes, ingress controllers, CNI plugins, CSI storage systems, or cluster-autoscaling technologies.
- Experience with distributed databases, consensus systems, or control-plane technologies such as etcd.
- Experience designing multi-cluster, multi-region, or edge-oriented Kubernetes environments.
- Knowledge of Linux performance analysis, kernel behavior, and container isolation.
- Experience with chaos engineering, failure injection, load testing, and resilience testing.
- Experience establishing SLOs, error budgets, production-readiness reviews, and reliability governance.
- Experience working in an environment with embedded, edge, fleet, or geographically distributed systems.
- Familiarity with GitOps and deployment technologies such as Argo CD, Flux, Helm, or similar tools.
- Relevant Kubernetes or cloud certifications, such as CKA, CKAD, or equivalent practical experience.
Principal-level expectations
The person hired into this role should be expected to:
- Own problems that cross team and technology boundaries.
- Make architecture decisions that affect the broader platform and product roadmap.
- Establish technical direction rather than only implement assigned designs.
- Drive ambiguous, high-impact issues from symptoms through root cause and permanent resolution.
- Create reusable platform capabilities and engineering standards.
- Influence without relying on direct authority.
- Mentor other senior engineers and improve the organization’s technical maturity.
- Remain hands-on enough to debug systems, prototype solutions, review code, and validate designs.
Accessibility
HPE is committed to creating an inclusive and accessible workplace and encourages applications from all qualified individuals, including those with disabilities. If you believe you require accommodation during any stage of the application or interview process, please submit your request by completing our secure form linked here.
Note: This option is reserved for applicants needing assistance/reasonable accommodation related to a disability.
What We Can Offer You:
Health & Wellbeing
We strive to provide our team members and their loved ones with a comprehensive suite of benefits that supports their physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.
Personal & Professional Development
We also invest in your career because the better you are, the better we all are. We have specific programs catered to helping you reach any career goals you have — whether you want to become a knowledge expert in your field or apply your skills to another division.
Unconditional Inclusion
We are unconditionally inclusive in the way we work and celebrate individual uniqueness. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good.
Let's Stay Connected:
Follow @HPECareers on Instagram to see the latest on people, culture and tech at HPE.
Job:
EngineeringJob Level:
TCP_05
– United States of America: Annual Salary USD 165,500 - 313,500 in Colorado // 157,000 - 361,000 in North Carolina
The listed salary range reflects base salary. Variable incentives may also be offered."
Information about employee benefits offered in the US can be found at https://myhperewards.com/main/new-hire-enrollment.html
The estimated job application period closure is January 11 2027; this timeline is provided for transparency and internal planning purposes.HPE is an Equal Employment Opportunity/ Veterans/Disabled/LGBT employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or any other protected category, and all decisions we make are made on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. Our goal is to be one global team that is representative of our customers, in an inclusive environment where we can continue to innovate and grow together. Please click here: Equal Employment Opportunity.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is EEO Protected Veteran/ Individual with Disabilities.
HPE will comply with all applicable laws related to employer use of arrest and conviction records, including laws requiring employers to consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories.
Recruitment Fraud Alert
We have become aware of an increase in fraudulent recruitment activities in which individuals impersonate our company or authorized recruitment agencies to offer fake employment opportunities. These scams may occur through false websites, emails, social media, or chat-based applications and often aim to obtain personal information or money. Please note that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), its direct and indirect subsidiaries and affiliated companies, and its authorized recruitment agencies/vendors will never charge a candidate a registration fee, hiring fee, or any other fee in connection with its recruitment and hiring process. We also never request personal information such as back account details, Social Security numbers, or national IDs via social media or chat applications.
All legitimate job opportunities will come through official company channels, and candidates are responsible for verifying the credentials of any third party claiming to represent the company. Any reliance on fraudulent communication is at the individual’s own risk, and HPE disclaims legal liability for any resulting damages. If you suspect recruitment fraud, do not share personal information or make any payments and report the incident to your local authorities immediately.
See All 83 Principal Site Reliability Engineer Jobs
Find roles that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find JobsPrincipal Site Reliability Engineer Job Market
Who's Hiring
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
- Electronics & Hardware
- Manufacturing
- Medical Devices
- Telecommunications
What Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in principal site reliability engineer jobs.
- 7 or more years of SRE, infrastructure, or production engineering experience
- Deep expertise in Kubernetes, Terraform, or comparable container orchestration and infrastructure-as-code tooling
- Proficiency in at least one systems or scripting language such as Go, Python, or Java
- Experience defining and operating SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets at a production scale
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional reliability initiatives and mentor junior engineers
- Hands-on experience with observability stacks including distributed tracing, metrics, and log aggregation platforms
Tips for Your Principal Site Reliability Engineer Job Search
Quantify your reliability impact on paper
Principal SRE resumes that convert lead with concrete reliability outcomes: error budget burn rates reduced, MTTR improvements, or availability targets maintained across multi-region systems. Hiring managers at this level read past job duties and straight to what you actually changed.
Target companies by reliability maturity
A principal SRE role at a company still building its first on-call rotation is very different from one inheriting a mature SLO framework. Scan job descriptions for phrases like 'define SRE practice' versus 'scale existing platform' so you apply to the right operational stage.
Apply early to roles that fit
Migrate Mate lists principal site reliability engineer openings from across the United States in one place, so you can find roles that match and apply directly to each listing.
Prepare a system design story with failure modes
Principal SRE interviews almost always include a large-scale system design question that probes how you reason about failure. Prepare two or three real examples where you designed for graceful degradation, not just steady-state performance, and can explain the tradeoffs you made.
Negotiate scope alongside compensation
At the principal level, the size of your mandate, which teams you influence, and whether you own headcount decisions vary widely. During offer conversations, ask explicitly what SRE engineering decisions require your sign-off so you understand the actual authority the role carries.
Follow up with a system-specific detail
After a final-round interview, send a follow-up note that references one technical constraint the team mentioned and briefly connects it to how you've solved a similar problem. It signals active listening and separates you from candidates who send generic thank-you messages.
Principal Site Reliability Engineer Jobs: Frequently Asked Questions
Which companies are hiring the most principal site reliability engineers?
The companies hiring the most principal site reliability engineers right now include Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems USA, and Oracle, with the largest share of openings in California, Utah, and Texas, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of November 2026. Demand is highest at large cloud-native companies and financial institutions running high-availability platforms.
How many principal site reliability engineer jobs are remote?
About 83% of principal site reliability engineer openings are fully remote or hybrid as of November 2026, reflecting strong employer flexibility at senior levels. Roles focused on platform engineering strategy and observability architecture tend to be the most remote-friendly, while positions tied to on-call rotation ownership or hands-on data-center infrastructure often require some on-site presence.
How do you become a principal site reliability engineer?
Most principal SREs move up through senior software or infrastructure engineering roles, then into an SRE function where they own reliability for one or more critical services. Building expertise in SLO design, incident command, and production system architecture is essential. Taking on cross-team reliability projects, mentoring junior engineers, and demonstrating measurable impact on availability and latency are the steps that typically precede a principal promotion.
Can you get hired as a principal site reliability engineer without direct SRE title experience?
Yes, candidates with deep infrastructure engineering, platform, or DevOps backgrounds are regularly hired into principal SRE roles if their experience covers SLO ownership, production incident response, and large-scale system design. Focus your resume on reliability outcomes rather than job titles, and be prepared to explain how your past work maps to the SRE model in behavioral and system design interviews.
What does the principal site reliability engineer interview process look like?
Most principal SRE interview loops include a recruiter screen, a technical phone or video round covering systems design and production debugging, and a full loop with engineering and staff leadership. Expect at least one large-scale distributed systems design session, a behavioral round assessing cross-functional leadership, and often a presentation or case study on how you would improve a team's reliability posture. The full process typically runs across multiple weeks.
Where can I find and apply to principal site reliability engineer jobs?
You can find and apply to principal site reliability engineer jobs on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings from across the United States. Search for roles that match your experience in infrastructure, platform engineering, or cloud reliability, then apply directly to each listing that fits.
See All 83 Principal Site Reliability Engineer Jobs
Find roles that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
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