Principal Software Engineer - Backend

About this role

Job Requisition ID #

26WD97363

Position Overview  

We are seeking a   Principal Software Engineer – Backend   to join Autodesk’s Enterprise Data Management (EDM) organization within the COO-GET Engineering group. This is a senior individual contributor role   operating   at the   Principal   (P4) level , expected to drive technology direction for   large, complex, and business-critical backend and distributed systems .  

This role is anchored in   backend software engineering excellence : designing, building, and evolving scalable services, APIs, and event-driven systems that   operate   at enterprise scale. As a Principal Engineer, you will work with   high autonomy and ambiguity , shape long-term architecture, and influence multiple teams and domains. Familiarity with data engineering concepts is valuable, but backend systems, service design, and distributed systems are the core competencies.  

You will function as a technical authority and force multiplier—guiding design decisions, setting standards, and ensuring Autodesk’s core data services are reliable, resilient, and evolvable over time.  

Responsibilities

• Provide   principal-level technical leadership   across multiple backend and platform teams, shaping architecture and technical strategy beyond a single squad or service

• Author and evolve   critical backend systems and APIs , ensuring they meet long-term scalability, reliability, and extensibility goals

• Lead design of   distributed, event-driven systems , addressing consistency, ordering, failure handling, replay, idempotency, rate limiting, and backpressure

• Establish and drive   service and API standards   across domains, including schema design, versioning strategies, backward compatibility, and consumer experience

• Act as a technical decision-maker for cross-team initiatives; evaluate tradeoffs and make durable architectural choices aligned with business priorities

• Drive   operational excellence   across systems you   influence:   observability, alerting strategy, incident response, post-incident learning, and systemic remediation

• Introduce and reinforce   engineering best practices   for design reviews, code quality, testing, CI/CD, and production readiness across multiple teams

• Mentor senior engineers and emerging technical   leaders;   raise the bar through influence, example, and coaching rather than direct management

• Partner deeply with product, data, and platform leaders to translate ambiguous business problems into clear, actionable technical solutions

• Remain hands-on where impact is highest: complex system design, critical implementations, architectural refactors, and high-severity incident resolution

Minimum Qualifications  

• Bachelor’s or   Master’s degree in Computer Science , a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience , with significant depth in backend and distributed systems

• Demonstrated   expertise   building and operating   backend services and APIs   in production environments at scale

• Strong experience with   distributed systems design , including asynchronous processing, messaging, eventual consistency, and fault tolerance

• Deep hands-on experience with   AWS   and cloud-native architectures (compute, storage, messaging, IAM, observability, scaling patterns)

• Proven ownership of   mission-critical systems , including design accountability, operational responsibility, and long-term maintainability

• Strong software engineering fundamentals: system design, service-level data modeling, API design, automated testing, CI/CD, and   infrastructure as   code

• Track record   of influencing architecture and engineering outcomes   across multiple teams   without formal authority

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences

Preferred Qualifications  

• Experience building   enterprise platform services   consumed by many internal and/or external teams

• Python + AWS + API + backend services integration experience highly preferred

• Familiarity with   data engineering or data platform ecosystems   (e.g., streaming pipelines, data warehouses such as Snowflake) as a producer or advanced consumer of data services

• Experience with   event streaming and messaging platforms   (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalents)

• Background in domains such as   master data management, identity resolution, data enrichment, or data quality

• Experience integrating backend services with analytics, search/indexing, or ML/AI platforms

• Prior experience   operating   in large, complex organizations where systems span multiple teams, regions, and   business units

Learn More

About Autodesk Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

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 $139,000 and $249,260. Offers are based on the candidate’s experience and geographic location, and may exceed

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