Principal Software Engineer Jobs in Los Angeles, CA
Principal Software Engineer jobs in Los Angeles are concentrated in Silicon Beach neighborhoods like Santa Monica, Venice, and Playa Vista, as well as downtown and the Westside corridor, across entertainment technology, streaming platforms, fintech, e-commerce, and defense tech. Employers hiring right now include Riot Games, Riot Games, and Northrop Grumman. Scan the live roles below and apply to whichever ones fit.
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Problem Solving
Software Solutions
Solutions Development
REQ#: RQ227362
Public Trust: Other
Requisition Type: Regular
Your Impact
Own your opportunity to work alongside federal civilian agencies. Make an impact by delivering solutions that improve citizen services millions depends on.
Job Description
PRINCIPAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER SENIOR
What You’ll Do
- Define and drive the strategic direction for backend and full-stack engineering practices, architecture, and technical excellence across the organization
- Lead the development of scalable, reliable, and secure distributed systems that serve government customers
- Serve as the technical authority and thought leader for system architecture, data design, and engineering excellence
- Design and implement modern service architectures, data pipelines, and infrastructure patterns that enable team velocity and system reliability
- Deliver new features and improvements to our core services including major read/write paths for customer intake, application screening, and information dissemination
- Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to balance technical feasibility with business requirements, making pragmatic trade-offs that deliver measurable impact
- Build and maintain shared libraries, service frameworks, and infrastructure patterns that enable consistency and reduce cognitive load
- Identify opportunities to modernize our backend systems and take ownership of large-scale technical initiatives that improve system quality, performance, and maintainability
- Establish and champion engineering best practices including API design, data modeling, testing strategies, observability patterns, security standards, and code quality
- Mentor and coach engineers at all levels on backend technologies, distributed systems, and establish career development pathways for backend specialization
- Influence technical decisions across teams and serve as a strategic advisor on architecture and infrastructure initiatives
- Work across the full stack when needed to solve problems end-to-end – frontend and infrastructure experience is valuable but backend systems are your
primary focus
What We’re Looking For Evidence of Engineering Accomplishment
- Demonstrated track record of leading and delivering multiple production-ready, scalable distributed systems with measurable business impact
- Proven experience architecting and implementing microservice architectures at scale with highthroughput and reliability requirements
- Track record of establishing backend engineering standards, practices, and architectural patterns that improve team productivity and system quality
- Working experience with distributed system patterns including event-driven architectures, asynchronous processing, caching strategies, and data consistency patterns
- Experience designing and implementing APIs (REST, GraphQL, or similar) that serve as the foundation for customer-facing applications
- Strong understanding of system transformation patterns with practical experience leading modernization efforts from monoliths to microservices or legacy to modern stacks
- Experience with observability, monitoring, and alerting strategies including structured logging, metrics, tracing, and incident response
- Familiarity with cloud-native architectures, infrastructure as code, and deployment patterns (AWS, Azure, GCP)
- Experience with data architecture including relational and NoSQL databases, data modeling, migration strategies, and data governance
Technical Excellence
- Strong proficiency in modern programming languages (Java, Python, or similar) with deep understanding of language ecosystems and tooling
- Solid understanding of distributed systems principles including consistency models, consensus algorithms, failure modes, and reliability patterns
- Working knowledge of cloud engineering paradigms, asynchronous systems, service integration patterns, and event-driven architectures
- Experience with automated testing strategies including unit testing, integration testing, contract testing, and end-to-end system testing
- Practical knowledge of system performance optimization, capacity planning, and cost optimization
- Understanding of security principles including authentication, authorization, encryption, secrets management, and secure coding practices
- Experience establishing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with automated testing, security scanning, and deployment strategies
- Familiarity with container orchestration (Kubernetes, ECS), infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation), and DevOps practices
System Design & Architecture
- Demonstrated ability to design systems that balance consistency, availability, partition tolerance, performance, and cost
- Strong understanding of data architecture including database selection, schema design, indexing strategies, and query optimization
- Experience with message brokers, event streaming platforms (Kafka, SQS, EventBridge), and asynchronous processing patterns
- Ability to design for reliability including graceful degradation, circuit breakers, retry strategies, and disaster recovery
- Working knowledge of API design principles, versioning strategies, and backward compatibility patterns
- Understanding of system observability including structured logging, distributed tracing, metrics aggregation, and alerting strategies
Leadership, Ownership, & Communication
- Demonstrated ability to lead large-scale technical initiatives from vision to production, influencing outcomes across multiple teams
- Quality driven, sets the standard for excellence in communication, code, and documentation
- Ability to communicate complex technical concepts and strategic vision clearly to engineers, product managers, executives, and external stakeholders
- Proven track record of mentoring and developing engineers at all levels, building organizational backend engineering capability
- Recognized advocate for sound engineering practices who establishes patterns and influences engineering culture
- Comfort leading cross-functional initiatives, making architectural decisions with organizational impact, and navigating technical/business trade-offs at the principal level
Required • Must be a US Citizen and able to obtain and maintain Public Trust 6C
#EDopportunities
Work Requirements
5 + years of related experience
- may vary based on technical training, certification(s), or degree
Less than 10%
U.S. Citizenship Required
Salary and Benefit Information
The likely salary range for this position is $142,792 - $189,750. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.
Our Identity Verification Process
As part of the hiring process, we will ask you to complete an identity verification process that leverages advanced biometrics and artificial intelligence to ensure authenticity and protect against identity fraud. You are expected to be on camera during virtual interviews. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud. By proceeding, you authorize the collection, processing, and use of your biometric data for identity verification and security purposes.
About Our Work
We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers technology solutions and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community. Our 26,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50+ countries worldwide, offering leading mission-ready capabilities in AI, cloud, cyber and software development.
Join our Talent Community to stay up to date on our career opportunities and events at gdit.com/tc.
Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans
See All 333+ Principal Software Engineer Jobs in Los Angeles
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Find JobsPrincipal Software Engineer Job Market in Los Angeles
Who's Hiring
- Riot Games145

- Northrop Grumman42

- Freeform21

- Snap21

Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software
Principal Software Engineer Jobs in Los Angeles: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a principal software engineer job in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles hires principal software engineers most heavily in entertainment tech, streaming, gaming, fintech, e-commerce, and aerospace, with the densest concentrations in Silicon Beach, the Westside, and downtown. Candidates who stand out here tend to have deep distributed systems or platform engineering experience, since many Los Angeles employers operate at consumer scale. Building visibility at local tech meetups and targeting companies expanding their LA engineering hubs also helps.
Which companies hire principal software engineers in Los Angeles?
Los Angeles principal software engineer roles are posted by Riot Games, Riot Games, and Northrop Grumman and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. The employer mix reflects the city's strengths, from major streaming and media tech firms in Burbank and Culver City to fintech startups and defense contractors in El Segundo and the South Bay.
Are there remote principal software engineer jobs in Los Angeles?
Yes, though principal software engineer roles that involve cross-functional leadership or team mentorship are more often hybrid than fully remote. About 14% of principal software engineer openings tied to Los Angeles are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, with fully remote postings most common at product and platform companies headquartered in Silicon Beach.
How can I get a principal software engineer job in Los Angeles with little or no experience?
The most realistic path is building depth as a senior software engineer at a mid-size Los Angeles tech company before stepping into a principal role. Entertainment tech firms, gaming studios, and growth-stage startups in the Westside and Culver City cluster tend to promote from within and offer technical lead tracks. Contributing to open-source projects used by local employers and presenting at LA-area engineering events also builds the credibility hiring managers look for.
Which industries hire the most principal software engineers in Los Angeles?
The sectors hiring the most principal software engineers in Los Angeles are Technology & Software, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. Los Angeles's combination of major streaming and media companies, a dense fintech startup scene, and significant aerospace and defense contractors creates unusually broad demand for senior engineering leadership across multiple verticals.
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