Principal Software Engineer - Ops Cloud Platform

About the position

PagerDuty is seeking a highly experienced Principal Engineer to lead the technical vision and drive architectural design across four high-impact teams in PagerDuty's Operations Cloud Platform division. In this role, you will partner closely with product management and engineering leadership to define and execute a long-range technical strategy that supports our rapidly evolving SAAS platform. This is an exciting opportunity as you will be a trusted advisor, a hands-on architect, and a mentor to engineers across multiple domains-including authentication and authorization, monetization, developer ecosystems, and account administration-ensuring that our technology scales effectively while maintaining quality and security. PagerDuty is a flexible, hybrid workplace. We embrace and encourage in-person working as an integral part of our culture. Both our employees and external research tells us that co-located collaboration strengthens connections, drives innovation, and accelerates learning. This role is expected to come into our San Francisco office 1 day/month, so you can thrive in your new role and fully embrace being a Dutonian!

Responsibilities

• Define and articulate the long-range technical roadmaps and architecture for our core SaaS platform.
• Develop, prototype, and implement complex, scalable solutions in collaboration with cross-team leaders.
• Evaluate new technologies and design innovative solutions that drive platform evolution over a 3-5 year horizon.
• Act as a technical leader and consultant across multiple teams, breaking down ambiguous problems and translating them into effective engineering solutions.
• Foster a culture of collaboration by mentoring engineers, facilitating technical discussions, and ensuring that design decisions are clearly articulated across the teams.
• Oversee and contribute to the technical design and evolving architecture of critical systems.
• Ensure that designs meet rigorous standards in coding, reliability, scalability, security, and cost efficiency.
• Provide guidance on technical decisions that align with short-term project needs and long-term strategic goals.
• Serve as a technical resource for high-impact projects and complex problem-solving.
• Coach and mentor Senior and Staff engineers, establishing development standards and fostering a learning environment.
• Work closely with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, and other stakeholders to prioritize engineering initiatives.
• Ensure that each team's roadmap is harmonized with the overarching technical vision.
• Lead efforts to evaluate emerging technologies and create prototypes that address complex challenges within our platform.

Requirements

• At least 12 years of demonstrated hands-on experience in software engineering, architecture, and design at leading SaaS companies.
• Proven record of delivering enterprise-scale platforms and driving significant technical change across multiple teams or domains.
• Deep expertise in backend architectures, including microservices, APIs, and cloud-native technologies.
• Proficiency in modern programming languages (e.g., Java, Go, Python, Elixir, Ruby, or similar).
• Strong foundations in distributed systems, security practices, and cost-effective scaling strategies.
• Proven ability to define and communicate a long-term technical roadmap that impacts business strategy.
• Experience leading cross-team architecture discussions, building technical prototypes, and driving the adoption of best practices across diverse engineering teams.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior experience in a SaaS environment with responsibility over high-availability platforms.
• Familiarity with security protocols and patterns such as SSO, MFA, OAuth2, and audit logging systems.
• Experience working with cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure), modern DevOps practices, Infrastructure as Code, and container orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes).
• A strong record of published work in technical forums, contributions to open source projects, or research innovations.
• Experience with designing authentication & authorization systems, scalability management, and integration of third-party services.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated mentorship and leadership in driving collaboration, facilitating design reviews, and codifying technical standards.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Comprehensive benefits package from day one
• Flexible work arrangements
• Company equity
• ESPP (Employee Stock Purchase Program)
• Retirement or pension plan
• Generous paid vacation time
• Paid holidays and sick leave
• Dutonian Wellness Days & HibernationDuty - companywide paid days off in addition to PTO
• Paid parental leave: 22 weeks for pregnant parent, 12 weeks for non-pregnant parent
• Paid volunteer time off: 20 hours per year
• Company-wide hack weeks
• Mental wellness programs