Backend Engineer (Node.js, AI)

About the Company

Atlassian is a leading provider of collaboration, development, and project management software solutions that empower teams worldwide to work more effectively. With a strong commitment to innovation and inclusivity, Atlassian develops tools designed to enhance teamwork, streamline workflows, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. The company’s mission is to unleash the potential of every team by providing products that facilitate seamless communication, transparency, and productivity. Recognized for its vibrant corporate culture and dedication to diversity and inclusion, Atlassian continually strives to create an environment where all employees can thrive and contribute meaningfully to the company's success.

About the Role

We are seeking a highly skilled and visionary Principal Engineer to lead the development and scaling of our internal AI proxy platform. This role is pivotal in enabling the exponential growth of AI usage across Atlassian’s engineering teams while ensuring the infrastructure remains sustainable, secure, and cost-efficient. The successful candidate will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams—including developer infrastructure, AI platform, security, compliance, and developer tooling—to define, design, and implement a robust platform that supports high availability, low latency, and secure AI operations at scale. This is a high-impact role that requires strategic thinking, technical excellence, and leadership to set the technical direction and oversee the delivery of critical components of our AI infrastructure. The Principal Engineer will also be responsible for mentoring engineering teams, establishing observability frameworks, and driving continuous improvement in system reliability and performance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field
• Extensive experience in designing and implementing scalable distributed systems
• Proven expertise in cloud infrastructure, preferably with experience in AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Deep understanding of AI/ML model deployment, routing, and optimization strategies
• Strong background in security, compliance, and governance in cloud environments
• Experience with telemetry, observability, and monitoring tools and frameworks
• Exceptional leadership and mentorship skills, with experience leading engineering teams
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to operate effectively in high-ambiguity environments
• Strong communication skills to collaborate across multiple teams and stakeholders

Responsibilities

• Define and set the technical vision for the AI proxy platform, focusing on cost efficiency, security, and context integration
• Design and deliver a highly available proxy service architecture with sub-second latency to support all AI traffic
• Own and optimize the cost-efficiency stack, including usage quota enforcement, semantic caching, model routing, and workflow cost attribution
• Develop security integration frameworks to enable rapid policy enforcement across internal AI tools
• Lead the development of context integration layers, facilitating sharing of skills, tools, and benchmarking across AI repositories
• Partner with cloud infrastructure teams to optimize model execution, token management, and context compression
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align on technical strategies and ensure seamless integration of AI infrastructure components
• Mentor and develop engineering teams, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning
• Establish telemetry, monitoring, and observability dashboards to track system performance, usage, and ROI metrics
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance reliability, security, and operational efficiency of the platform

Benefits

• Comprehensive health and wellbeing resources
• Paid volunteer days to engage with local communities
• Competitive compensation packages aligned with experience and location
• Opportunities for bonuses, stock options, and other incentives
• Flexible remote work arrangements and supportive work environment
• Access to professional development and training programs
• Inclusive and diverse workplace culture that values all perspectives