Principal Software Development Engineer (Cloud)

TL;DR

Principal Software Development Engineer (Cloud): Leading the technical architecture for the global Cloud Platform organization with an accent on cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes orchestration, and reliable distributed systems. Focus on designing highly scalable cell-based architectures, optimizing cloud economics, and building agentic developer platform tools to handle complex service growth.

Location: San Jose, California (Hybrid)

Salary: $249,000–$348,500 (plus potential performance-based increases up to $398,500)

Company

hirify.global is a global travel technology company powering experiences for travelers and partners worldwide through a unified cloud and data platform.

What you will do

• Define the long-term technical strategy and architecture for the Cloud Platform organization.
• Lead the transition to a cell-based architecture to improve failure domains and horizontal scalability.
• Modernize Kubernetes strategy, focusing on multi-cluster management, service mesh, and automated infrastructure.
• Set organizational standards for SRE, observability, and automated incident response.
• Drive FinOps technical strategy to optimize infrastructure spend and align with business value.
• Build and evolve agent-friendly developer infrastructure, including dev containers and ephemeral environments.

Requirements

• Extensive professional experience in designing and operating large-scale, cloud-native distributed systems on Kubernetes.
• Expertise in at least one major public cloud provider and core platform technologies (networking, security, CI/CD).
• Demonstrated experience in making high-impact architectural decisions and navigating complex technical trade-offs.
• Proficiency in Go, Rust, or similar modern systems programming languages.
• Strong background in observability patterns such as OpenTelemetry and Prometheus.
• Familiarity with AI/ML-driven systems and applying these concepts to cloud platform environments.

Nice to have

• Track record of defining multi-year technical strategies for global developer ecosystems.
• Hands-on experience in productionizing AI/ML solutions for cloud optimization, such as predictive scaling or anomaly detection.
• Deep understanding of unit economics and infrastructure performance tuning at internet scale.

Culture & Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• Flexible work model with office presence expectations.
• Generous paid time off, parental leave, and travel discounts.
• Wellness & travel reimbursements and membership to IATAN.
• Culture focused on inclusivity, diversity, and celebrating individual differences.