Principal Engineer API Platform

About The Role

At CVS Health, we are building a developer platform that sets the standard for how hundreds of engineers across Retail, Pharmacy, Health Solutions, and Aetna design, build, secure, and publish APIs. Our platform spans an internal and external developer portal, an API catalog that drives discovery and prevents duplication across the enterprise, and the systems responsible for delivering APIs, agent-to-agent integrations, and MCP servers to both cloud and on-premises gateways.

As a Principal Engineer on this platform, you will own the technical direction and architecture across several teams building these capabilities. This is a senior, cross-cutting role with significant organizational influence. You will establish the engineering practices that teams build on, define how APIs are designed and governed at scale, and lead the effort to embed AI-powered capabilities into the developer experience itself, from intelligent coding assistance that guides engineers toward compliant API patterns to MCP servers that make the enterprise API catalog available as a live, queryable context for AI-enabled workflows. This is a rare opportunity to shape the developer experience for a Fortune 6 company from the ground up, working with a high level of autonomy and leaving a long-term imprint on how CVS engineers build and deliver software.

Responsibilities

• API Design, Architecture & Governance
  • Define and enforce standards for REST, GraphQL, event-driven, and MCP-based interfaces across the enterprise.
  • Understand API lifecycle management from specification and contract-first design through versioning, deprecation, and eventual retirement.
  • Architect systems for delivering APIs and integrations to multi-environment targets, including public cloud (GCP, AWS, Azure) and on-premises gateways.
  • Leverage deep experience with API gateway technologies, service mesh, and the infrastructure concerns that underpin reliable, high-throughput API delivery.
  • Build and operate an API catalog at enterprise scale, including taxonomy, discoverability, and ownership models.
• Security & Compliance
  • Approach API security as a first-class architectural concern, with hands-on expertise in OAuth 2.0, OIDC, mTLS, scopes, rate limiting, and threat modeling for APIs.
  • Define and operationalize secure-by-default patterns that developers on the platform adopt naturally.
  • Translate regulatory and compliance requirements for healthcare APIs (HIPAA, FHIR, CMS interoperability rules) into platform guardrails.
  • Collaborate with security architecture teams to validate designs and respond to findings.
• AI-Powered Developer Experience
  • Lead the design and delivery of AI capabilities embedded into the developer platform, including AI-powered coding assistants that guide engineers toward CVS-compliant API patterns.
  • Architect and build MCP servers that expose the enterprise API catalog as a queryable, real-time context for AI agents and developer tools.
  • Prompt, instrument, and evaluate large language models in production contexts, discerning when AI is the right tool.
  • Define the strategy for AI tooling integration with the portal, catalog, and gateway delivery pipeline, driving adoption across CVS engineering teams.
• Technical Leadership & Platform Thinking
  • Articulate a clear technical vision, rally engineers across multiple teams, and maintain high-quality execution.
  • Actively participate in architecture reviews, design documents, and pull requests to improve both immediate work and long-term thinking.
  • Design for extensibility, self-service, and the needs of teams you have never spoken to.
  • Measure platform health, developer adoption, and API impact using data-driven approaches, communicating value to leadership.
  • Mentor engineers, particularly those earlier in their careers, and invest in their growth.
  • Partner with product managers, architects, and program leaders to maintain a coherent strategy and roadmap.
• Engineering Craft
  • Write clean, well-tested, production-grade code in JavaScript/TypeScript (Node.js, React) and Java/Spring Boot, holding teams to the same standard.
  • Champion mature CI/CD practices, including automated testing, contract testing for APIs, and safe deployment strategies.
  • Ensure observability in distributed API systems through structured logging, distributed tracing, and meaningful metrics.
  • Stay current with emerging technologies and evaluate their trade-offs and organizational costs.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a meaningful portion spent designing and delivering APIs at enterprise scale.
• 5+ years of direct experience with API security, including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, mTLS, rate limiting, and API threat modeling.
• 5+ years working with API gateway products and API management platforms (e.g., Apigee, Kong, Azure APIM, or equivalent).
• 5+ years of backend development in Java/Spring Boot and/or Node.js.
• 5+ years working with large public cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure), including networking and identity primitives for secure API delivery.
• 3+ years of experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams in a principal, staff, or architect-level capacity.
• 3+ years partnering with product management, architecture, and program management to shape roadmaps and deliver complex platform capabilities.
• Experience building or operating an API catalog, developer portal, or internal developer platform.
• Experience with GraphQL schema design and federation at scale.
• Experience with mature CI/CD practices, source control, automated testing, and contract-first API development.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building AI-powered developer tooling, including LLM-integrated coding assistants, MCP servers, or AI-assisted API design workflows.
• Experience with agent-to-agent (A2A) integration patterns or MCP-based tooling.
• Experience with healthcare data standards and APIs, including FHIR, HL7, and CMS interoperability requirements.
• Experience designing and operating event-driven APIs using Kafka or comparable streaming platforms.
• Strong written communication skills, particularly in technical design documents and architecture decision records (ADRs).
• Demonstrated experience growing and mentoring senior engineers and technical leads.

Qualifications

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience (High school diploma plus 4 years relevant work experience).

Pay

The typical pay range for this role is $144,200.00 - $288,400.00. This range represents the base annual full-time salary and will depend on factors including experience, education, geography, and other relevant considerations. This position is also eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission, or short-term incentive program, as well as an award target in the company's equity award program.

Benefits

This full-time position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of colleagues and their families, including:

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Paid time off.
• Retirement savings options.
• Wellness programs and other resources.

Additional details about available benefits are provided during the application process and on Benefits Moments.