Senior Principal Software Engineer, Backend - Advanced Cluster Security (RHACS)

About the Job Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security (RHACS) Engineering builds security solutions for OpenShift and Kubernetes deployments. Our mission is to make OpenShift the most secure Kubernetes distribution by designing security workflows across the full software development lifecycle. We are seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer - product-minded, with strong backend, distributed systems, and AI-driven engineering experience - to join our team. In this role, you will define the technical strategy across teams to solve hard problems for our customers. You will design large-scale systems that address Kubernetes security challenges today and hold up as requirements grow. As the engineering organization transitions toward an agentic software development lifecycle, you will drive the strategy for integrating AI-powered tools and workflows into how we build, test, and ship software. We are looking for someone who doesn't just implement what they're told - you challenge specifications, propose alternative approaches, and evaluate both engineering and product trade-offs simultaneously. You understand how your technical decisions connect to business outcomes and customer value, and you stay engaged well beyond shipping to understand real-world impact. What You Will Do Technical Strategy: Drive the design of backend systems across multiple RHACS subsystems, ensuring scalability and fault-tolerance for the world's largest commercial Kubernetes clusters. Drive cross-functional alignment with product management, design, and peer engineering teams. AI-Driven Engineering: Lead the adoption of agentic development practices - defining how AI tools, context registries, and automated workflows reshape the SDLC from intake through release. Quality & Reliability: Establish testing practices, architectural patterns, and development methodologies that multiple teams can adopt to raise the bar on system reliability. SDLC Evolution: Improve how teams build and ship software by introducing new methodologies, including AI-accelerated approaches, to make multiple teams more effective. Innovation: Identify and drive adoption of new technologies and frameworks. Represent RHACS in open-source communities and industry working groups. Talent Development: Coach and mentor Principal Engineers across organizations through code reviews, design feedback, and guidance on agentic development. Business Impact: Own complex, multi-month technical initiatives, navigating ambiguity and tracking real-world usage beyond shipping to inform future product direction. What You Will Have Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related STEM field (or equivalent practical experience) with 8 years of software development experience. Architecture Expertise: Proven track record in architecting and implementing high-performance backend services (RESTful and gRPC APIs) and large-scale distributed systems. Kubernetes Depth: Significant hands-on experience with Kubernetes, including deployment, scaling, and securing clusters in production environments. Technical Versatility: Deep expertise in at least two of: Linux system internals, container runtime security, distributed data systems (PostgreSQL), or observability at scale. Automation Proficiency: Knowledge of frameworks like Terraform and Helm, with experience creating tools that enhance developer productivity. Leadership & Influence: Experience setting standards and driving alignment across multiple teams, with the ability to mentor senior and principal-level engineers. Product Mindset: The ability to think beyond code to understand how technical decisions affect customer experience and business outcomes, and to proactively balance engineering effort with user impact. Navigating Ambiguity: Able to take an unclear problem, define the approach, and drive it to completion across teams with competing priorities. Open to learning new technologies and languages (we primarily use Gola ... (truncated, view full listing at source)