Principal Software Engineer

Job Duties

• Partner with engineering and product leadership to define technical strategy and delivery roadmaps that improve the student experience at scale
• Build and ship production-grade software while establishing engineering standards others follow
• Lead Agile delivery practices that balance rigorous planning with rapid execution and predictable outcomes
• Design and evolve cloud-native architectures with strong emphasis on scalability, observability, reliability, security, and operational supportability
• Evaluate technical decisions through a build, buy, borrow, or bot lens with focus on speed-to-value, sustainability, and fiscal responsibility
• Mentor engineers on modern software engineering practices, AI-assisted development workflows, and emerging technologies
• Prototype new tools, frameworks, and architectural patterns through proof-of-value initiatives
• Drive engineering excellence across multiple teams by establishing repeatable delivery patterns and operational standards
• Partner closely with infrastructure, cloud, security, architecture, and product teams as a peer technical leader
• Identify architectural inefficiencies and technical debt, proposing practical and cost-effective solutions grounded in data
• Communicate technical strategy, dependencies, tradeoffs, and risks clearly to executive leadership
• Support operational readiness, incident response, and day-2 supportability across enterprise systems
• Lead through accountability, urgency, ownership, and attention to detail
• Participate in critical operational events and provide leadership during high-impact incidents when needed

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field
• 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience including architecture, delivery leadership, and technical mentorship across multiple teams
• Experience building and operating web applications using Java, REST APIs, SQL, and Git in enterprise environments
• Experience designing and delivering system integrations with third-party and internal platforms
• Track record in large-scale enterprise IT organizations with established operational processes

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field
• Experience with Kafka/Confluent and integration middleware (Apache Camel, MuleSoft, or similar)
• Hands-on AWS experience: ECS/EKS, Lambda, SNS/SQS, API Gateway, Terraform, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, and container orchestration in production
• Observability stacks (Dynatrace, Datadog, or similar) including custom metrics and SLO management
• Familiarity with AI/ML platforms, LLM integration, and agentic frameworks
• Higher education, EdTech, or regulated industry experience
• ITIL v4 Foundation or higher; AWS Solutions Architect or CKA certification
• Experience across multiple industry verticals

Pay

$180,300.00 - $279,500.00

Location

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career. Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

Additional Information

Full-Time Regular Positions (classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages; legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves, including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

Disclaimer

This position description outlines the primary duties, responsibilities, requirements, and working conditions of the role. Management reserves the right to modify responsibilities as needed to meet organizational needs. This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including attendance at designated company summits, typically one to two times per year.