Senior Principal Software Engineer, Platform Engineering

The Role

We are seeking an accomplished Senior Principal Engineer with a strong background in developing and scaling cloud infrastructure and platforms. In this role, you will spearhead the design and implementation of our internal developer platform, a critical component of SoFis technology strategy. You will collaborate with engineering leaders and principal engineers across the organization to create a seamless and efficient developer experience, enabling our engineering teams to build and deliver high-quality products at high velocity. The ideal candidate is a hands-on technical leader with a deep understanding of cloud technologies, developer tools, and platform architecture, and a proven track record of driving large-scale infrastructure projects. This role is inherently cross-functional and you will work closely with engineering, product, marketing, risk, compliance, data science, operations, legal, and executive teams to set forth a strategy, define, and prioritize a vision. You’ll play a critical role delivering solutions that enable our engineers to get things done while driving our businesses forward; bridging engineering systems across products and teams in shaping the broader technical architecture. You’ll face and solve a wide range of challenges: technical, product, and operational, shaping your personal growth and career along the way.

What youll do:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable cloud infrastructure and platform services that empower our engineering teams.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to understand their needs and pain points, and translate them into technical solutions.
• Drive the adoption of best practices in cloud infrastructure, including infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and observability.
• Mentor and guide other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
• Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends, and proactively identify opportunities to improve our platform.

What youll need:

• Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 15+ years of software development experience, with significant experience working on cloud infrastructure and platform engineering.
• Deep expertise in public cloud platforms (AWS is preferred, but GCP and Azure are relevant), containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker), and related technologies.
• Strong programming skills and experience with infrastructure automation tools (Terraform, Ansible, etc.).
• Full stack “operator”: ability to both create and execute the business and product strategy; with clear objectives, but limited, ambiguous, or varied direction
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Who you are:

• You are customer-obsessed and have an affinity for solving complex problems and shipping impactful features, and make pragmatic high judgment decisions without letting perfection become the enemy of progress.
• You demonstrate extremely high levels of technical knowledge, ingenuity and creativity. 
• You work and play well with others; SoFi is a highly collaborative workplace and a melting pot of diverse talent.
• You are confident in asking difficult questions and challenging your team while also keenly listening and taking feedback.
• You are a voracious learner - you have the ability to quickly and independently acquire proficiency in new languages and technologies.
• You value mentorship and constantly look for ways to improve the technical depth of the individuals on your teams.
• You are open to feedback and comfortable engaging in continuous learning processes to improve how you work as well as what we work on.