Principal Software Engineer

Location: Salt Lake City, UT (Onsite)

Job Description

The Principal Software Engineer is the primary technical leader of the department. This is a practitioner who ships production software, earns credibility through results, and sets the standard others follow. The Principal works inside the systems they influence, understands their limitations from firsthand experience, and translates that into action that resolves problems rather than merely identifying them.

This role demands expertise in AI-assisted development, agentic engineering, cloud-native architecture, and platform thinking. The Principal evaluates every technical decision through the build, buy, borrow, or bot lens, understanding what is fiscally responsible, operationally sustainable, and fastest to value.

The Principal holds the trust of engineering teams, product partners, and executive leadership. They influence through example: building prototypes, delivering working software, and taking ownership when critical issues arise. This person must be fluent in business fundamentals (P&L, cost of delay, unit economics) and connect engineering decisions to business results. The ideal candidate brings a track record of delivering at scale within large enterprise environments, ideally across more than one industry vertical. They maintain a culture of accountability, velocity, and quality grounded in the WGU Leadership Principles. Success in this role is defined by delivery: what ships, what improves, and what problems get solved.

Job Duties

Partner with engineering and product leadership to define technical strategy and delivery roadmaps that improve the student experience at scale

Build and ship production-grade software while establishing engineering standards others follow

Lead Agile delivery practices that balance rigorous planning with rapid execution and predictable outcomes

Design and evolve cloud-native architectures with strong emphasis on scalability, observability, reliability, security, and operational supportability

Evaluate technical decisions through a build, buy, borrow, or bot lens with focus on speed-to-value, sustainability, and fiscal responsibility

Mentor engineers on modern software engineering practices, AI-assisted development workflows, and emerging technologies

Prototype new tools, frameworks, and architectural patterns through proof-of-value initiatives

Drive engineering excellence across multiple teams by establishing repeatable delivery patterns and operational standards

Partner closely with infrastructure, cloud, security, architecture, and product teams as a peer technical leader

Identify architectural inefficiencies and technical debt, proposing practical and cost-effective solutions grounded in data

Communicate technical strategy, dependencies, tradeoffs, and risks clearly to executive leadership

Support operational readiness, incident response, and day-2 supportability across enterprise systems

Lead through accountability, urgency, ownership, and attention to detail

Participate in critical operational events and provide leadership during high-impact incidents when needed

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field

10+ years of progressive software engineering experience including architecture, delivery leadership, and technical mentorship across multiple teams

Experience building and operating web applications using Java, REST APIs, SQL, and Git in enterprise environments

Experience designing and delivering system integrations with third-party and internal platforms

Track record in large-scale enterprise IT organizations with established operational processes

Equivalent relevant experience may substitute for education (1 year experience per 1 year education, at hiring manager discretion)

Preferred Qualifications

Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

Experience with Kafka/Confluent and integration middleware (Apache Camel, MuleSoft, or similar)

Hands-on AWS experience: ECS/EKS, Lambda, SNS/SQS, API Gateway, Terraform, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, and container orchestration in production

Observability stacks (Dynatrace, Datadog, or similar) including custom metrics and SLO management

Familiarity with AI/ML platforms, LLM integration, and agentic frameworks

Higher education, EdTech, or regulated industry experience

ITIL v4 Foundation or higher; AWS Solutions Architect or CKA certification

Experience across multiple industry verticals