Principal Engineer, Public Cloud / R&D Core

Business Area:

Seniority Level:

Job Description:

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises.

The Data Platform Pillar is the bedrock of Cloudera’s technology, where we design and build the core components that let our customers store, manage, and process data with unmatched scalability, security, and performance.

Join our Public Cloud / R&D Core team as a Principal Engineer, where you'll be at the forefront of groundbreaking projects that define our multi and hybrid cloud data management capabilities. This is a highly technical role demanding a true technical sovereign of our Data platform ecosystem.

You will be responsible for influencing and building the core foundation of our most critical cluster management data platform components. We are looking for an individual who seeks diverse challenges, pushes the boundaries of distributed systems, and ships code enabling the processing of millions of events—not someone who simply follows a checklist. You will be the key technical leader for the pod, responsible for ensuring that our strategic prototypes meet Cloudera’s global standards for technical excellence, including scalability and resilience.

As a Principal Software Engineer, your responsibilities will include:

• Architectural Leadership: Serve as the primary technical lead, independently driving the design and architecture of complex, large-scale cloud services that underpin our multi-cloud and hybrid data management platform. Determine the optimal technical approach to resolve high-friction challenges and deliver solutions that are highly scalable, resilient, and high-quality.

• Stakeholder Alignment and Definition: Act as the critical bridge between engineering and stakeholders (internal and external) to diagnose root causes of friction. Translate ambiguous business requirements into precise engineering tasks and concrete architectural blueprints for the development team.

• Technical Authority and Mentorship: Drive technical excellence across the team. Act as the technical authority for Senior and Full-Stack engineers, conducting rigorous code reviews, enforcing DevSecOps best practices, and guaranteeing all solutions meet "production-ready" standards.

• Complex Problem Solving: Tackle the most difficult technical challenges and system interactions where existing documentation or standard procedures fall short. Apply advanced engineering principles to debug complex interactions between Hadoop components and modern Cloud-Native architectures.

• Strategic Influence: Synthesize technical insights derived from strategic initiatives and feed this information back to Cloudera’s core Global Engineering teams. Use this deep understanding to directly influence the future architecture and product roadmap of the Cloudera Data Platform (CDP).

We are excited if you have (Required Experience):

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent, and 10+ years of experience; OR Master’s degree and 6+ years of experience; OR PhD and 4+ years of experience
  Distributed Systems Visionary: You have 10+ years of experience building and scaling robust products. You understand the trade-offs of low-latency, high-throughput systems at a fundamental level.

• Java Ecosystem Authority: You don't just write Java; you understand the JVM. You have a deep track record of building concurrent, high-performance applications.

• Orchestration Mastery: Expert-level proficiency with Kubernetes and Docker, understanding how to utilize containerization for building portable and resilient services.

• Linux, Networking, and CI/CD: Solid foundational knowledge of Linux environments, networking, virtual machines, and container technologies (e.g., Docker), coupled with practical experience using CI/CD solutions such as Jenkins and GitHub Actions.

• Engineering Craft: You demonstrate a strong sense of ownership and a bias for action in your work. You are committed to clean architecture, maintainable patterns, and delivering software designs at the Principal level

• Strong background in public cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure), with expertise in security, infrastructure provisioning, containerization, and service enablement. Good understanding of BareMetal and VM stack Deep expertise in public cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure), specifically in infrastructure provisioning, security best practices, service enablement, and containerization. Familiarity with both BareMetal and VM technologies is also required.

• Exceptional collaboration and communication abilities, enabling effective work with diverse, cross-functional teams globally.

• A strong dedication to mentoring and developing team members, helping them reach their maximum potential.

Why this role matters:

You will tackle complex distributed systems challenges, crafting the foundational software for the control and data planes that powers CDP and keeps it running at massive scale. Working at the forefront of hybrid and multi-cloud technology, you will empower data scientists, engineers, and analysts with the tools and infrastructure they need for advanced analytics and modeling.

Collaboration is key, you will work alongside brilliant minds across product, data science, and engineering to drive innovation, standardize best practices, and shape the future of enterprise AI and data platforms. This is your chance to build the future of data and see your work make a global impact.

This role is not eligible for immigration sponsorship.

The expected base salary range for this role in

• California & Washington is $248,000 - $310,000

The salary will vary depending on your job-related skills, experience and location

What you can expect from us:

• Generous PTO Policy

• Support work life balance with Unplugged Days

• Flexible WFH Policy

• Mental & Physical Wellness programs

• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program

• Access to Continued Career Development

• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages

• Paid Volunteer Time

• Employee Resource Groups

EEO/VEVRAA