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# Principal Software Engineer - (Reston or Cambridge)

- **Company:** Akamai Technologies
- **Location:** Atlanta, GA, United States
- **Salary:** $169,300.0 - $304,700.0
- **Contract:** Permanent contract
- **Skills:** JavaScript (Programming Language), PHP (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Automation of Tests, Unix, Continuous Integration, Linux, Python (Programming Language), Automation of Marketing, Reliability Engineering, Ruby, Software Systems, SQL Databases, Web Applications, Reliability of Systems, Containerization, Software Version Control, Microservices
- **Published:** October 31, 2026
- **Apply:** https://dejobs.org/x/x/7ECC92E1F7C3474EB6B73E74B3B3FC99/job/

## About the Role

* Have 12 years of relevant experience and a Bachelor's degree
 * Have experience developing full-stack web applications, APIs, and microservices in Linux or Unix environments
 * Possess expertise in languages such as Python, JavaScript, SQL, Ruby, or PHP
 * Be knowledgeable about CI/CD pipelines, containerization, automated testing, and revision control workflows
 * Demonstrate solid grounding in SRE principles, including SLI/SLO tracking, toil reduction, and root-cause analysis
 * Demonstrate success creating architectural blueprints, evaluating emerging technologies, and mentoring engineering peers
 * Possess US Citizenship, and be eligible to undergo the required security clearance process; an active clearance is not required.

## Description

Our team's mission is to accelerate innovation by making computing simple, scalable, accessible, and affordable for all. We provide the infrastructure and services that enable developers to build next-generation applications. We take ownership of the design and development of core compute interfaces, virtualization management, APIs, and low-level platform services.

Partner with the best

As a technical authority, you will drive engineering excellence through robust solution design. You will integrate Site Reliability Engineering principles to ensure web applications, APIs, and automation platforms excel in reliability. Additionally, you will build specialty tooling to maintain our globally distributed infrastructure.

As a Principal Software Engineer Lead, you will be responsible for:

 * Architecting complex distributed software systems and authoring technical blueprints to eliminate operational toil
 * Establishing development standards, pull request review frameworks, and Service Level Objectives to maintain system resilience
 * Designing deployment safety pipelines, continuous integration workflows, and automated testing frameworks for secure production releases
 * Serving as the Tier-3 escalation authority for complex application failures and leading postmortem reviews
 * Mentoring engineering teams on system design while cultivating an inclusive and collaborative technical culture