Alteryx, Inc

Principal Software Engineer, Distributed Systems

Alteryx, Inc$215K — $300K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • ~10+ years of software engineering experience, including 3-6 years in a principal-level role
  • Proven expertise in designing large-scale, distributed systems
  • Hands-on experience with orchestration or workflow engines
  • Strong proficiency in Java, Python, or Node.js
  • Experience with message/event systems and streaming architectures
  • Familiarity with in-memory data stores and caching technologies
  • Strong knowledge of containerization and Kubernetes
  • Experience in API design and observability practices
  • Ability to conduct performance analysis and scaling strategies

Responsibilities

  • Define and own architectural vision and roadmaps for platform domains
  • Perform architecture reviews and vet designs for standards and scalability
  • Lead critical subsystems hands-on as needed
  • Drive and enforce architectural patterns across teams
  • Prototype innovations and evaluate new technologies
  • Mentor architects and senior engineers through architectural changes
  • Collaborate with infrastructure and operations teams for maintainable architecture
  • Define architecture governance and conduct reviews
  • Participate in tech strategy and roadmap planning
  • Diagnose technical debt and enforce consistency in the codebase

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • 401(k) with company match
  • Paid parental leave and flexible time off
  • Mental health support and wellness reimbursement
  • Career development and education assistance
Full Job Description

Alteryx is searching for a Principal Engineer. This position is remote-friendly.

Position Overview:

We are looking for a highly autonomous, senior architect to drive, review, and own the software architecture for our core platform. This person will be the technical conscience for large-scale, distributed systems, and will collaborate closely with engineering leads, product owners, and infrastructure teams. You will design, evolve, and enforce architectural standards and patterns; lead cross-cutting initiatives; and mentor other engineers.

At this level, we expect you to operate with minimal handholding, you will influence and make tough technical decisions, resolve tradeoffs, and bring clarity to ambiguity.

Primary Responsibilities:

  • Define, evolve, and own the architectural vision and roadmaps for the major platform domains (e.g. orchestration, job execution, data pipelines, sidecar services).

  • Perform architecture reviews, assess proposals from teams, and vet designs for adherence to standards, scalability, performance, reliability, and security.

  • Lead or contribute hands-on to critical subsystems (e.g. orchestrator, scheduling, service mesh, job pipelines, stateful services).

  • Drive and enforce cross-team architectural patterns.

  • Provide thought leadership: prototype proofs-of-concept, evaluate new tools/technologies, bring innovation into the platform.

  • Mentor and coach architects, senior engineers, and guide teams through architectural change.

  • Collaborate with infrastructure, operations, SRE, security, and DevOps to ensure the architecture is operable, observable, and maintainable in production.

  • Help define and lead architecture governance (e.g. architecture review board, reference architectures, standards, guidelines).

  • Participate in tech strategy, roadmap planning with product & engineering leadership.

  • Diagnose and resolve technical debt or architectural 7smells8 across the codebase, enforcing consistency.

Qualifications:

  • Experience: ~10+ (or more) years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 6 years in senior architect or principal-level roles (or equivalent).

  • Proven track record of designing and operating large-scale, distributed systems in a production environment.

  • Deep hands-on experience with orchestration, scheduler systems, job pipelines, or workflow engines.

  • Strong proficiency in one or more of: Java / JVM ecosystem, Python, Node.js, or equivalent high-level backend languages.

  • Experience with message/event systems (e.g. Kafka or similar), queueing, streaming architectures.

  • Familiarity with in-memory data stores and caching (e.g. Redis or equivalents).

  • Strong knowledge of containerization, Kubernetes, sidecar patterns, service meshes, proxies, etc.

  • Understanding or experience in split-plane architectures (control plane / data plane separation) is highly desirable.

  • Strong skills in API design, data modeling, integration patterns, error handling, consistency.

  • Experience with observability (metrics, tracing, logging) and designing systems for operability and failure modes.

  • Ability to conduct performance analysis, capacity planning, scaling, fault tolerance strategies.

  • Excellent communication skills 6able to articulate tradeoffs, convince stakeholders, write design docs, lead design reviews.

  • Ability to function autonomously, make decisions in ambiguity, drive consensus across teams, and adopt/evict technologies as needed.

  • Strong judgment about when to optimize vs. when to simplify.

  • Familiarity with high-scale cloud deployments (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure-as-code is a plus.

Behavioral Traits & Soft Skills:

  • Self-starter and independent: you9ll take ownership with minimal direction.

  • Ability to see the forest and the trees: high-level architectural vision + detailed component thinking.

  • Bias for action: you move forward, prototype, iterate, course-correct.

  • Collaborative: able to work across teams, mentor, negotiate constraints.

  • Pragmatic: balancing ideal architecture with business realities and timelines.

  • Strong problem-solving mindset and good intuition about tradeoffs under constraints.

Metrics of Success/What You9ll Be Measured On:

  • Quality, consistency, and maintainability of architectural decisions across the platform.

  • Reduction in architectural debt and increase in architectural coherence over time.

  • Adoption of patterns and standards across teams.

  • Ability to resolve cross-cutting issues and unblock teams in architecture matters.

  • Delivery of strategic cross-domain initiatives or major refactoring with low disruption.

  • Mentorship, influence, and raising the architecture maturity of engineering teams.

  • System reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability improvements.

Compensation:

Alteryx is committed to fair, equitable, and transparent compensation. Final compensation is determined by several factors, including but not limited to relevant work experience, education, certifications, skills, and geographic location.

The salarya0range for this role in the United States is $215,000 - $300,000.

Bonus payouts are based on individual and company performance.

In addition to base pay and bonus eligibility, this role includes clear forms of additional compensation, such as:

  • A monthly Connectivity Plus stipend of $150 to support remote work-related expenses

  • An annual $200 home office reimbursement

Alteryx offers a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your health, financial security, and overall well-being, including:

  • Medical, dental, and vision coverage

  • 401(k) with company match

  • Paid parental leave, caregiver leave, and flexible time off

  • Mental health support and wellness reimbursement

  • Career development and education assistance

Interested? Learn more and apply today at alteryx.com/careers!

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About Alteryx, Inc

Alteryx is a computer software company based in Irvine, California, with a development center in Broomfield, Colorado. The company's products are used for data science and analytics. Its software is designed to make advanced analytics accessible to any data worker. The company's products are used by companies such as Amazon, Ford, and Coca-Cola. Alteryx was founded in 1997 by Dean Stoecker, Olivia Duane Adams, and Ned Harding. The company went public in 2017 and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AYX.
Learn more about Alteryx, Inc
Size
2,384 employees
Market Cap
$3.2 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$24.3 million
Founded
2011
5 Year Trend
+44.3%
Revenue
$495.3 million
NASDAQ

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