Senior Principal Software Engineer

About the role

OCI is expanding its in-house formal verification team to handle major new development initiatives. We are building our next generation of core data-planes and cloud automation, for which correctness and reliability are critical. We are looking for self-motivated engineers with passion and expertise for practical application of formal methods to complex problems.

Responsibilities

• Help engineers to state their requirements and algorithms much more precisely than conventional design docs, uncovering many ambiguities and invalid assumptions – i.e. design bugs.
• Provide additional ways to describe and think about requirements and design, revealing problems.
• Review critical sections of code, reverse-engineering the higher-level algorithm or design that has been implemented, and formally verifying it against its intended properties.
• Use tools such as model-checkers, constraint solvers, and AI-driven methods to check a precise design against precise correctness properties.
• Create new methodologies and tools to enable safe and productive use of Generative AI for designing, implementing, and testing mission-critical components and services.
• Automatically generate formal specifications from informal descriptions to remove ambiguity, validate them, and ensure they accurately capture the intent of the author.
• Automatically generate implementation code from a formal specification, and validate that the generated code satisfies the specification.
• Automatically reverse-engineer a formal specification from code, at an appropriate level of abstraction, and verify it against high-level correctness properties.
• Using AI to find inductive invariants and write mechanically checked proofs.

Requirements

• MS degree or higher in Computer Science, involving a significant amount of formal specification and verification.
• 5+ years of full-time professional software development of concurrent and distributed systems, ideally cloud services.
• Ability to write correct high-performance concurrent code in at least one of C/C++, Java, GoLang, or Rust.
• Deep knowledge of standard distributed algorithms used in cloud dataplanes, e.g. Paxos, Raft, Viewstamped Replication, leases, methods of concurrency control, storage systems, and transaction systems.
• Skilled in reading informal requirements, system designs, and code.
• Skilled in identifying the most critical and complex/subtle parts, and writing formal specifications for those parts at a level of abstraction appropriate for verifying correctness of the system.
• Knowledge and experience of other specification methods and tools is also highly valued.
• Skilled in verifying safety and liveness using model checkers such as TLC and Apalache.
• Ideal experience with applying mechanical proof tools such as TLAPS, with associated experience of finding inductive invariants for concurrent algorithms.
• Excellent at collaborating with software engineers to help verify correctness of their work.

Qualifications

• Disclaimer: Certain U.S. based or U.S. customer or client-facing roles may be required to comply with applicable requirements, such as immunization/occupational health mandates, and/or drug testing requirements.
• Hiring Range in USD: $135,200 - $306,400 per year. May be eligible for bonus, equity, and compensation deferral.
• Oracle offers a comprehensive benefits package which includes medical, dental, and vision insurance, short-term and long-term disability, life insurance, AD&D, supplemental life insurance, health care and dependent care flexible spending accounts, pre-tax commuter and parking benefits, 401(k) savings and investment plan with company match, paid time off, flexible vacation, accrued vacation, paid sick leave, adoption assistance, employee stock purchase plan, financial planning and group legal, and voluntary benefits including auto, homeowner, and pet insurance.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Short term and long term disability
• Life insurance and AD&D
• Supplemental life insurance (Employee/Spouse/Child)
• Health care and dependent care flexible spending accounts
• Pre-tax commuter and parking benefits
• 401(k) Savings and Investment Plan with company match
• Paid time off: Flexible Vacation is provided to all eligible employees assigned to a salaried (non-overtime eligible) position. Accrued Vacation is provided to all other employees eligible for vacation benefits. For employees working at least 35 hours per week, the vacation accrual rate is 13 days annually for the first three years of employment and 18 days annually for subsequent years of employment. Vacation accrual is prorated for employees working between 20 and 34 hours per week. Employees working fewer than 20 hours per week are not eligible for vacation.
• Accommodation for a disability at any point
• 11 paid holidays
• Paid sick leave: 72 hours of paid sick leave upon date of hire. Refreshes each calendar year. Unused balance will carry over each year up to a maximum cap of 112 hours.
• Paid parental leave
• Adoption assistance
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Financial planning and group legal
• Voluntary benefits including auto, homeowner and pet insurance

About Us

Only Oracle brings together the data, infrastructure, applications, and expertise to power everything from industry innovations to life-saving care. And with AI embedded across our products and services, we help customers turn that promise into a better future for all. Discover your potential at a company leading the way in AI and cloud solutions that impact billions of lives. True innovation starts when everyone is empowered to contribute. That’s why we’re committed to growing a workforce that promotes opportunities for all with competitive benefits that support our people with flexible medical, life insurance, and retirement options. We also encourage employees to give back to their communities through our volunteer programs. We’re committed to including people with disabilities at all stages of the employment process. If you require accessibility assistance or accommodation for a disability at any point, let us know by emailing accommodation-request_mb@oracle.com or by calling 1-888-404-2494 in the United States. Oracle is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law.