Principal Engineer II

What You'll Do

The Principal Engineer II – Performance Engineering serves as a senior technical leader responsible for diagnosing, analyzing, and resolving complex performance issues across distributed systems, applications, and network infrastructure. This role requires deep expertise in TCP/IP networking, packet analysis, and cross-functional troubleshooting, combined with the ability to lead end-to-end investigations, influence architecture decisions, and communicate findings to both technical and business stakeholders. The role also leverages modern observability and network analysis tools to support comprehensive performance diagnostics.

• Lead end-to-end performance investigations across applications, middleware, infrastructure, and networks
• Capture and analyze TCP/IP packet data to diagnose latency, packet loss, retransmissions, and throughput issues
• Apply advanced TCP/IP knowledge to identify root causes of performance degradation and instability
• Distinguish between network, application, and infrastructure-related performance issues
• Utilize enterprise observability and network analysis tools, including NetBrain, Datadog, and LiveNX/LiveWire
• Correlate packet data, metrics, logs, and traces to provide comprehensive end-to-end performance insights
• Collaborate with cross-functional engineering teams to coordinate investigations and drive remediation efforts
• Assess business impact and prioritize issues based on risk and urgency
• Document technical findings and present results to technical and leadership stakeholders
• Define and promote performance engineering best practices across the organization
• Mentor engineers and contribute to improving overall performance engineering maturity

What You'll Need

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
• 15+ years of experience in performance engineering, systems engineering, or network engineering
• Expert-level understanding of TCP/IP networking fundamentals
• Strong knowledge of enterprise network and system architectures
• Experience with observability and network analysis tools such as NetBrain, Datadog, and LiveNX/LiveWire
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Experience in financial services or other regulated environments
• Experience with distributed systems, middleware platforms, and application architectures
• Experience with observability, APM, or network performance monitoring tools
• Prior experience in a Principal Engineer or equivalent senior technical leadership role

About The Company

Western Alliance Bank, Member FDIC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Alliance Bancorporation. Serving clients nationwide, Western Alliance Bank includes six legacy bank brands — Alliance Association Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, Bank of Nevada, Bridge Bank, First Independent Bank and Torrey Pines Bank — that remain part of the company’s heritage, as well as AmeriHome Mortgage, a Western Alliance Bank Company. Western Alliance Bancorporation is committed to equal employment and will consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, sex, color, religion, age, nation origin, marital status, disability, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or genetic information.