Principal Software Engineer (Java/Kubernetes)

Location: Hybrid in Denver, CO, with 3 days on-site per week

Base pay: $200,000–$230,000 annually, plus stock options and variable bonuses.

Company

hirify.global provides software-factory solutions that help enterprises build, run, govern, audit, and secure software delivery across existing toolchains. hirify.global CI is built on Jenkins, Java, and Kubernetes.

What you will do

• Set technical direction and define the hirify.global CI roadmap with engineering and product partners.
• Design resilient distributed systems on Kubernetes, documenting tradeoffs involving scale, failure handling, compatibility, and operational complexity.
• Write production-quality Java and lead critical refactors, performance improvements, stability fixes, testing, releases, and follow-up.
• Diagnose JVM and distributed-system problems, including memory leaks, thread contention, classloading issues, and cross-component failures.
• Evolve plugin-based architectures and service boundaries while protecting compatibility and upgrade behavior.
• Lead cross-team initiatives, design and code reviews, mentoring, secure coding, automated testing, incident analysis, and complex customer issue resolution.

Requirements

• 12+ years of relevant software engineering experience, including Staff- or Principal-scope technical leadership and delivery of complex software platforms.
• Deep Java expertise covering JVM behavior, concurrency, memory management, classloading, and source and bytecode compatibility.
• Production experience building and supporting distributed systems on Kubernetes, including architectural tradeoffs and failure modes.
• Strong knowledge of concurrency, event-driven architectures, message buses, and failure handling.
• Demonstrated improvement of established codebases through refactoring, architectural simplification, and measurable performance or reliability gains.
• Current hands-on coding experience and ownership of difficult changes through testing and release.
• Experience setting technical direction across teams, leading complex initiatives, mentoring senior engineers, and influencing engineering, product, and senior stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD and developer workflows, with the ability to connect technical decisions to customer needs, delivery speed, and product quality.
• Clear communication, sound reasoning, explicit tradeoff analysis, constructive technical leadership, and ownership of outcomes.

Nice to have

• Deep experience with Jenkins internals, plugin development, or extensible enterprise products.
• Leadership of modernization, simplification, or stabilization efforts for CI/CD systems, workflow engines, or developer platforms.
• Contributions to Jenkins, Kubernetes, or the open-source DevOps ecosystem.
• Production experience with LLM-powered features or MCP tooling in backends.

Culture & Benefits

• Customer-obsessed, high-agency culture focused on truth seeking, direct feedback, shipping excellence, and ownership.
• Unlimited combined vacation, sick, and personal time, plus paid U.S. holidays and two paid volunteer days.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage from the start date; HSA contributions are available with the HDHP plan.
• 401(k) company match, life and disability coverage, employee assistance, and Headspace access.
• Monthly home-office stipend, hybrid Denver office access, bonus plan, and stock options.
• Global, collaborative team with emphasis on knowledge sharing and professional growth.