Principal Software Engineer

Iridium is an award-winning satellite communications company known for its global network and services. We provide essential connectivity for various sectors including first responders, militaries, and scientific researchers. We seek a technical leader with expertise in test automation, software architecture, and engineering tooling.

About the role

You will lead the Solutions Automation team's automation framework, partnering with technical leadership to define and evolve the architecture, standards, and long-term technical roadmap. You will prototype new frameworks, validate architectural decisions, and represent the team in technical forums.

Responsibilities

• Partner with technical leadership to define and evolve the framework architecture for the Solutions Automation team.
• Define standards and reference patterns for integrating generative AI into the software development lifecycle.
• Prototype new frameworks, patterns, and AI-augmented tooling to validate architectural decisions.
• Represent the Solutions Automation team in Technical Interchange Meetings (TIMs), Daily Change Control Boards (DCCBs), and other technical forums.
• Own lab and framework standardization, ensuring consistent environments and tooling across all teams.
• Drive technical modernization and platform scalability initiatives.
• Grow the technical depth of every engineer on the team through mentorship, design and code reviews, pairing on hard problems, and leading technical onboarding for new hires.
• Provide technical evaluation support during hiring, including the design of technical interview assessments and candidate evaluation.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 10+ years of progressive engineering experience, preferably in software development, automation, and/or testing.
• Demonstrated experience defining software architecture, framework design, and technical standards for automation or software development teams.
• Demonstrated experience integrating generative AI tooling into software development or test automation workflows.
• Strong understanding of modern software development practices, CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native architectures, and software testing principles.
• Proven ability to define and communicate technical vision, make architecture decisions that balance innovation with pragmatism, and introduce new technologies, tools, and patterns that improve team productivity and product quality.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey complex technical concepts clearly to both engineering and non-technical stakeholders.
• Product-minded engineering judgment and strong design taste, with experience collaborating with product managers or directly with end users.
• Curiosity and a growth mindset, with a pattern of learning new domains and tools quickly, sound judgment in assessing risks, tradeoffs, and second-order effects when making architecture decisions, and the willingness to change direction when new evidence contradicts earlier assumptions.
• Bias for action and a track record of shipping complex technical initiatives end to end.

Qualifications

• Knowledge of satellite communications, computer networking, or telecommunications systems.
• Experience with internal developer platforms, platform engineering, or developer experience (DX) initiatives.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code, modern CI/CD platforms, and DevSecOps practices.
• Experience with agentic or autonomous systems, AI evaluation frameworks, or evaluating AI coding assistants at team or org scale.
• Experience with software management tools (JIRA, etc.).
• Experience scaling engineering practices across multiple Agile delivery teams.

Benefits

• Base salary ranging from $150,000 to $200,000 USD.
• Employee benefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage; 401(k) retirement plan options; paid time off and paid holidays; paid parental leave; and other discounts and perks.