Principal Engineer - Kubernetes Platform

About the role

As a Principal Engineer with Deep Engineer archetype in Kubernetes Platform, you will own technically complex, high-impact outcomes from problem definition through production. You will bring deep expertise in agent infrastructure and distributed systems to shape the platform’s architecture and technical direction. You’ll make sound trade-offs across security, isolation, performance, scalability, portability, cost, and developer experience, while remaining close to the code and operational reality. You will influence across teams and geographies, partner with product and engineering leaders, and raise the effectiveness of engineers through coaching, design leadership, and practical engineering standards. Success will be measured by sustained outcomes—not activity—including safer workloads, faster iteration, reliable services, and leverage across Atlassian.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver the technical strategy for secure, low-latency compute infrastructure for AI agents and untrusted workloads.
• Lead architecture and implementation of isolation, scheduling, lifecycle management, networking, policy enforcement, observability, and control-plane capabilities.
• Own end-to-end outcomes for ambiguous, cross-team initiatives, from design and prioritisation to launch, adoption, and measurable operational results.
• Advance portable, cloud-native execution across GCP and AWS while balancing platform consistency with regional and workload needs.
• Champion operational excellence for a tier-0 platform: reliability, security, privacy, incident learning, performance, and cost efficiency.
• Improve the developer experience through self-service APIs, automation, paved paths, and clear platform contracts.
• Set direction through written proposals and thoughtful technical decisions; mentor engineers and help grow an inclusive, high-performing team.

Pay

Atlassian follows consistent hiring practices and accounts for each candidate’s skills, knowledge, and experience when setting base pay within the range. In the United States, base pay ranges for new hires are:

• Zone A: $209,700 – $273,775
• Zone B: $188,730 – $246,398
• Zone C: $174,051 – $227,233

This role may also be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.