# Principal Software Engineer

**Company**: Western Governors University (WGU)
**Experience**: senior
**Job type**: full-time
**Salary**: $180,300.00 - $279,500.00
**Category**: Engineering
**Industry**: Education

**Apply**: https://wgu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Salt-Lake-City-UT/Principal-SE-Student-LifeCycle-Services_JR-026111?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply
**Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_6902e5da-4f3

## Description

The Principal Software Engineer is a technical leader who applies expert knowledge to ensure best practices and well-engineered architecture across the university. They will lead Agile delivery practices, design and evolve cloud-native architectures, and evaluate technical decisions through a build, buy, borrow, or bot lens.

Responsibilities:

- Partner with engineering and product leadership to define technical strategy and delivery roadmaps

- Build and ship production-grade software while establishing engineering standards

- Lead Agile delivery practices that balance planning with rapid execution

- Design and evolve cloud-native architectures with emphasis on scalability, observability, reliability, security, and operational supportability

- Evaluate technical decisions through a build, buy, borrow, or bot lens

- Mentor engineers on modern software engineering practices and emerging technologies

- Prototype new tools, frameworks, and architectural patterns

- Drive engineering excellence across multiple teams

- Partner with infrastructure, cloud, security, architecture, and product teams

- Identify architectural inefficiencies and propose practical solutions

- Communicate technical strategy and risks to executive leadership

- Support operational readiness and incident response

Requirements:

- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or related field

- 12+ years of progressive software engineering experience

- Experience building and operating web applications using Java, REST APIs, SQL, and Git

- Experience designing and delivering system integrations with third-party and internal platforms

- Track record in large-scale enterprise IT organizations

Preferred Qualifications:

- Master's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field

- Experience with Kafka/Confluent and integration middleware

- Hands-on AWS experience

- Spring Boot, Kubernetes, and container orchestration in production

- Observability stacks and custom metrics

- Familiarity with AI/ML platforms and agentic frameworks

- Higher education, EdTech, or regulated industry experience

Benefits:

- 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

- Flexible paid time off and sick time

- 11 paid holidays and other paid leaves

## Skills

### Required
- Java
- REST APIs
- SQL
- Git
- Agile delivery practices
- Cloud-native architecture

### Nice to have
- Kafka/Confluent
- AWS
- Spring Boot
- Kubernetes
- Observability stacks
- AI/ML platforms

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Source: [Apply at wgu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com](https://wgu.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Salt-Lake-City-UT/Principal-SE-Student-LifeCycle-Services_JR-026111?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)