Distinguished Engineer Jobs in USA with Visa Sponsorship
Distinguished Engineer roles sit at the top of the technical ladder, and most employers in this tier sponsor H-1B visa, O-1 visa, or EB-1A visas for the right candidate. Demand for this level is narrow enough that companies routinely file for talent regardless of visa status, making sponsorship a realistic expectation rather than a favor.
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Get Access To All JobsPosition Overview
As a Distinguished Engineer, you will serve as a hands-on technical leader driving the next generation of Data Engineering capabilities, including Data Governance, Enterprise Data products and access enforcement across cloud and AI-powered data products.
You will define and help execute the long-term technical vision for the Data Engineering ecosystem, enabling scalable and intelligent access to capabilities for both human and non-human actors, including services, automations, and AI agents.
This role combines deep technical expertise with the ability to influence engineering direction through implementation, mentorship, innovation, and company-wide technical leadership. You will play a critical role in accelerating strategic initiatives, incubating greenfield capabilities, and modernizing engineering practices through AI-assisted software development workflows.
You will operate across organizational boundaries to drive alignment, influence platform adoption, and help teams converge on data engineering solutions that serve long-term company goals. Success in this role requires strong technical judgment, the ability to influence without direct authority, and a pragmatic approach to balancing local team needs with broader platform and business priorities.
This role is expected to drive outcomes with impact across multiple data organizations and strategic company initiatives.
This role is ideal for a deeply technical leader who wants to combine hands-on engineering, platform innovation, and AI-driven development practices to shape the future of how data products are built and accessed.
You will help define both the data engineering platform capabilities and the engineering practices that enable the next generation of cloud and AI-powered experiences—while influencing technical direction and engineering strategy across the company at enterprise scale.
Responsibilities
- Lead the design and implementation of Data Products supporting cloud, API, and AI-driven access to data products
- Drive the development of greenfield initiatives and foundational platform capabilities through hands-on prototyping and implementation
- Serve as a technical accelerator across teams by contributing directly to critical projects and resolving complex engineering challenges
- Champion adoption of AI-assisted software development practices, including effective use of tools such as Claude Code to improve engineering productivity, software quality, and delivery velocity
- Establish best practices for integrating AI-assisted workflows into software design, implementation, testing, and operational support
- Design systems supporting access decisions for both human and non-human actors, including services, automations, and AI agents
- Build highly scalable, low-latency, and resilient distributed systems with strong operational excellence
- Influence technical direction across multiple engineering organizations to drive adoption of shared platform capabilities, standards, and engineering practices
- Build strong partnerships across engineering, product, security, and business teams while constructively challenging decisions when needed to ensure long-term scalability and company-wide alignment
- Act as a company-level technical leader, making decisions and recommendations based on what delivers the greatest overall customer and business impact
- Partner deeply with Product Management to shape product capabilities, monetization models, platform evolution, and long-term strategy
- Mentor engineers through hands-on collaboration, code reviews, architecture guidance, and technical leadership
- Evaluate emerging technologies and translate them into practical engineering capabilities and strategic advantages for the organization
- Influence engineering culture by promoting simplicity, developer experience, operational excellence, scalable architectures, and high-quality execution
Minimum Qualifications
- 12+ years of experience building large-scale data lakes, data warehouses, and platform services
- Strong hands-on software engineering background with the ability to contribute directly to architecture, design, and implementation
- Deep expertise in cloud-native architectures; data engineering, modeling, and governance; microservices and API design; and scalability, reliability, and operational excellence
- Recognized technical expertise in distributed systems and platform engineering
- Demonstrated ability to shape engineering direction through technical vision, innovation, and influence
- Strong experience driving engineering productivity improvements through modern tooling and developer platform investments
- Practical experience leveraging AI-assisted software development workflows and tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar technologies in real-world engineering environments
- Familiarity with AI-enabled product patterns, agentic workflows, and API-driven consumption models
- Proven ability to influence technical strategy and drive alignment across multiple organizations without direct authority
- Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to navigate complex organizational and technical tradeoffs
- Demonstrated ability to balance short-term delivery pressures with long-term platform and architectural sustainability
- Strong product and business acumen, with the ability to align technical decisions with customer and business outcomes
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience building platform services used across multiple engineering organizations
- Exposure to developer platforms, internal tooling, or engineering productivity initiatives
- Experience with cloud-native data platforms such as Snowflake or Databricks
- Experience with Kubernetes, event-driven architectures, and modern cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Exposure to AI/ML-enabled products and modern AI application architectures
- Experience driving enterprise-scale platform adoption and technical convergence initiatives
Benefits
From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/
Salary transparency
Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $196,000 and $352,110. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.
Equal Employment Opportunity
At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.
Belonging
We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/global-belonging
In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification
This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.
Position Overview
As a Distinguished Engineer, you will serve as a hands-on technical leader driving the next generation of Data Engineering capabilities, including Data Governance, Enterprise Data products and access enforcement across cloud and AI-powered data products.
You will define and help execute the long-term technical vision for the Data Engineering ecosystem, enabling scalable and intelligent access to capabilities for both human and non-human actors, including services, automations, and AI agents.
This role combines deep technical expertise with the ability to influence engineering direction through implementation, mentorship, innovation, and company-wide technical leadership. You will play a critical role in accelerating strategic initiatives, incubating greenfield capabilities, and modernizing engineering practices through AI-assisted software development workflows.
You will operate across organizational boundaries to drive alignment, influence platform adoption, and help teams converge on data engineering solutions that serve long-term company goals. Success in this role requires strong technical judgment, the ability to influence without direct authority, and a pragmatic approach to balancing local team needs with broader platform and business priorities.
This role is expected to drive outcomes with impact across multiple data organizations and strategic company initiatives.
This role is ideal for a deeply technical leader who wants to combine hands-on engineering, platform innovation, and AI-driven development practices to shape the future of how data products are built and accessed.
You will help define both the data engineering platform capabilities and the engineering practices that enable the next generation of cloud and AI-powered experiences—while influencing technical direction and engineering strategy across the company at enterprise scale.
Responsibilities
- Lead the design and implementation of Data Products supporting cloud, API, and AI-driven access to data products
- Drive the development of greenfield initiatives and foundational platform capabilities through hands-on prototyping and implementation
- Serve as a technical accelerator across teams by contributing directly to critical projects and resolving complex engineering challenges
- Champion adoption of AI-assisted software development practices, including effective use of tools such as Claude Code to improve engineering productivity, software quality, and delivery velocity
- Establish best practices for integrating AI-assisted workflows into software design, implementation, testing, and operational support
- Design systems supporting access decisions for both human and non-human actors, including services, automations, and AI agents
- Build highly scalable, low-latency, and resilient distributed systems with strong operational excellence
- Influence technical direction across multiple engineering organizations to drive adoption of shared platform capabilities, standards, and engineering practices
- Build strong partnerships across engineering, product, security, and business teams while constructively challenging decisions when needed to ensure long-term scalability and company-wide alignment
- Act as a company-level technical leader, making decisions and recommendations based on what delivers the greatest overall customer and business impact
- Partner deeply with Product Management to shape product capabilities, monetization models, platform evolution, and long-term strategy
- Mentor engineers through hands-on collaboration, code reviews, architecture guidance, and technical leadership
- Evaluate emerging technologies and translate them into practical engineering capabilities and strategic advantages for the organization
- Influence engineering culture by promoting simplicity, developer experience, operational excellence, scalable architectures, and high-quality execution
Minimum Qualifications
- 12+ years of experience building large-scale data lakes, data warehouses, and platform services
- Strong hands-on software engineering background with the ability to contribute directly to architecture, design, and implementation
- Deep expertise in cloud-native architectures; data engineering, modeling, and governance; microservices and API design; and scalability, reliability, and operational excellence
- Recognized technical expertise in distributed systems and platform engineering
- Demonstrated ability to shape engineering direction through technical vision, innovation, and influence
- Strong experience driving engineering productivity improvements through modern tooling and developer platform investments
- Practical experience leveraging AI-assisted software development workflows and tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or similar technologies in real-world engineering environments
- Familiarity with AI-enabled product patterns, agentic workflows, and API-driven consumption models
- Proven ability to influence technical strategy and drive alignment across multiple organizations without direct authority
- Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to navigate complex organizational and technical tradeoffs
- Demonstrated ability to balance short-term delivery pressures with long-term platform and architectural sustainability
- Strong product and business acumen, with the ability to align technical decisions with customer and business outcomes
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience building platform services used across multiple engineering organizations
- Exposure to developer platforms, internal tooling, or engineering productivity initiatives
- Experience with cloud-native data platforms such as Snowflake or Databricks
- Experience with Kubernetes, event-driven architectures, and modern cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
- Exposure to AI/ML-enabled products and modern AI application architectures
- Experience driving enterprise-scale platform adoption and technical convergence initiatives
Benefits
From health and financial benefits to time away and everyday wellness, we give Autodeskers the best, so they can do their best work. Learn more about our benefits in the U.S. by visiting https://benefits.autodesk.com/
Salary transparency
Salary is one part of Autodesk’s competitive compensation package. For U.S.-based roles, we expect a starting base salary between $196,000 and $352,110. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed this range. In addition to base salaries, our compensation package may include annual cash bonuses, commissions for sales roles, stock grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.
Equal Employment Opportunity
At Autodesk, we're building a diverse workplace and an inclusive culture to give more people the chance to imagine, design, and make a better world. Autodesk is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and considers all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic. We also consider for employment all qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable law.
Belonging
We take pride in cultivating a culture of belonging where everyone can thrive. Learn more here: https://www.autodesk.com/company/global-belonging
In-Person Onboarding and Identity Verification
This role may require in-person onboarding and/or in-person ID verification.
See all 66+ Distinguished Engineer Jobs
Sign up for free to unlock all listings, filter by visa type, and get alerts for new Distinguished Engineer roles.
Get Access To All JobsTips for Finding Visa Sponsorship as a Distinguished Engineer
Document your technical impact before applying
O-1 and EB-1A petitions require evidence of extraordinary ability, not just tenure. Compile patents, published research, conference keynotes, and board memberships now. Peer recognition and citation records carry more weight than job titles at this level.
Target companies with cap-exempt H-1B status
Universities, affiliated nonprofits, and government research organizations file H-1B petitions outside the annual cap. For Distinguished Engineers, this means skipping the lottery entirely and starting on a rolling basis year-round.
Search verified sponsors on Migrate Mate first
Start your employer search on Migrate Mate, which lists companies with verified LCA filing history by role and location. You'll see which organizations have actually sponsored senior engineering positions, not just those that mention it in job postings.
Verify prevailing wage tier before the offer
Distinguished Engineer roles typically land at DOL wage Level III or IV. Run your target job title and location through the OFLC Wage Search before salary negotiations so you know the floor your employer must certify on the LCA.
Ask your employer about concurrent EB-1A filing
At the Distinguished Engineer level, many employers will file an I-140 EB-1A petition concurrently with your H-1B. This starts your green card priority date immediately and doesn't require PERM labor certification, cutting years off the process.
Understand the O-1A as a lottery-free alternative
If your credentials are strong but H-1B timing is a barrier, the O-1A visa has no cap and no lottery. USCIS adjudicates based on sustained national or international acclaim, which aligns closely with what Distinguished Engineer roles demand on paper.
Frequently Asked Questions
What visas do employers typically sponsor for Distinguished Engineer roles?
The H-1B is the most common starting point, though many employers at this level also sponsor O-1A visas for candidates with strong public recognition, patents, or keynote history. EB-1A green cards are common because Distinguished Engineers often meet the extraordinary ability standard without needing PERM labor certification.
Does a Distinguished Engineer role qualify as a specialty occupation for H-1B purposes?
Yes. USCIS defines specialty occupation as requiring at least a bachelor's degree in a directly related field. Distinguished Engineer roles universally require advanced degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, or a related discipline. The seniority of the title reinforces the specialty occupation argument and rarely draws a Request for Evidence.
How do I find employers who actively sponsor Distinguished Engineer positions?
Search for open Distinguished Engineer roles on Migrate Mate, which surfaces companies with verified sponsorship history for senior engineering titles. This saves you the time of applying to companies that list sponsorship as theoretical but rarely follow through for principal-level or staff-plus roles.
Is a master's degree required, or will a bachelor's degree support sponsorship?
A bachelor's degree in a directly related field is the minimum USCIS requires for H-1B specialty occupation status. In practice, most Distinguished Engineers hold a master's or doctorate, and employers filing at this level often note the advanced degree in the LCA to support wage tier and petition strength. A strong bachelor's plus substantial patented work can still qualify.
Can a Distinguished Engineer self-petition for a green card without employer sponsorship?
Yes. The EB-1A extraordinary ability category and the EB-2 National Interest Waiver both allow self-petition. Distinguished Engineers with patents, significant industry citations, or judging history at major technical competitions are strong candidates for EB-1A. The NIW requires showing your work benefits the United States, which senior open-source contributions and foundational infrastructure work often satisfy.
What is the prevailing wage requirement for sponsored Distinguished Engineer jobs?
U.S. employers sponsoring a visa must pay at least the prevailing wage, which is what workers in the same role, area, and experience level typically earn. The Department of Labor sets this rate to make sure companies aren't hiring foreign workers simply because they'd accept lower pay than a U.S. worker. It varies by job title, location, and experience. You can look up current prevailing wage rates for any occupation and location using the OFLC Wage Search page.