Description
Autodesk is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership for a new Electron and Chromium-based desktop platform for Autodesk web applications.
In this hands-on individual contributor role, you will define the platform architecture, lead complex technical decisions, and guide engineers building the Electron runtime, Windows integrations, automated delivery systems, and shared platform capabilities.
Responsibilities
- Platform architecture and technical direction - approximately 30%
Define and evolve the architecture of the Electron desktop platform, including process boundaries, native capabilities, application interfaces, security controls, runtime configuration, and product integration patterns
- Hands-on platform engineering - approximately 25%
Design, prototype, implement, and review complex functionality across Electron, Chromium, Node.js, TypeScript, Windows APIs, and supporting native components
- Technical leadership and mentoring - approximately 20%
Guide engineers through design and implementation decisions, mentor team members, review complex changes, establish engineering standards, and help the team develop expertise in desktop platform engineering
- Cross-team integration and platform adoption - approximately 15%
Work with product teams and Autodesk platform teams responsible for security, identity, software distribution, telemetry, crash reporting, graphics, and other shared capabilities
- Operational readiness and engineering quality - approximately 10%
Partner with quality and release engineering to define release gates, runtime upgrade policies, observability, supportability, and production-readiness requirements
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
- Strong software engineering experience with JavaScript or TypeScript and Node.js
- Significant experience designing and delivering complex software systems or platform capabilities
- Experience with Electron, Chromium-based applications, desktop application development, or comparable systems-level application platforms
Preferred Qualifications
- Deep experience with Electron architecture, including main, renderer, and preload processes, context isolation, inter-process communication, and security configuration
- Strong understanding of Chromium architecture, runtime configuration, feature flags, release lifecycle, and developer tooling
- Experience with C++, native Node.js modules, or interoperability between JavaScript and native platform APIs
The Ideal Candidate
- You enjoy solving technical problems that do not fit neatly into a single layer of the technology stack.
- You are equally comfortable discussing platform architecture, reviewing TypeScript, investigating Chromium behavior, debugging a Windows issue, examining a crash report, or helping an engineer reason through a difficult design problem.
- You remain hands-on while thinking beyond your own code.
- You recognize when a local implementation decision could create a long-term platform problem and work with the team to find a simpler, more maintainable solution.