Principal Software Engineer, Operations Engineering

About the Team

About the Role

Role Overview

We are seeking a Principal Engineer with strong experience in infrastructure automation, configuration management, and CI/CD pipelines. In this leadership role, you will help define and execute the technology roadmap for configuration management across bare metal servers and virtual machines. You will guide pull request review processes, establish CI/CD best practices, and scale and maintain automation workflows that support high availability and reliable operations.

Core Focus: Chef Automation, Bare Metal and VM Orchestration, CI/CD Design and Maintenance

Work Pattern: Multi-Cloud and Bare Metal Infrastructure at Global Scale

Governance: Effective PR Reviews, Code Quality, and CI/CD Pipeline Automation

Key Responsibilities

Configuration Management and Provisioning

Scale, maintain, and support enterprise Chef cookbooks, custom resources, and environments across bare metal and VM infrastructures.

Standardize system configurations and automate bare metal provisioning and virtual machine lifecycles to promote high consistency across fleets.

Support infrastructure testing best practices, including tools such as Test Kitchen, within Chef development cycles.

CI/CD Automation and Jenkins Pipelines

Scale, maintain, and optimize Jenkins automation pipelines for continuous integration and continuous deployment of infrastructure code.

Automate testing, validation, and deployment workflows to reduce manual intervention in server configuration updates.

Integrate security scanning, automated linting, and rollback strategies into core CI/CD pipelines.

Code Review and Engineering Governance

Lead consistent Pull Request review processes that support code quality, security compliance, and alignment with engineering standards.

Establish operational guidelines, code styling standards, and testing frameworks for team infrastructure repositories.

Mentor engineers at different career stages on infrastructure-as-code principles, effective PR contributions, and automation workflows.

Bare Metal and VM Operations

Drive lifecycle management, hardware integration, and OS configuration across large-scale physical bare metal nodes and hypervisors.

Troubleshoot complex hardware, virtualization layer, network, and OS-level issues in high-density production environments.

Help keep the infrastructure fleet secure by supporting regular OS upgrades, applying critical security patches, and contributing to priority security programs.

Participate in a shared on-call rotation, with appropriate support and escalation processes, to help resolve critical operational issues and support site reliability.

About You

Basic Qualification

12+ years of hands-on experience with infrastructure automation and configuration management, including Chef or similar tools for cookbook development, custom resources, and automated server orchestration.

8+ years of experience managing, provisioning, and maintaining bare metal and/or enterprise virtualized infrastructure.

8+ years of experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure deployment and automated testing, preferably with Jenkins.

8+ years of experience establishing Git workflows, managing repository standards, and conducting thorough Pull Request code reviews.

8+ years of strong track record of automating complex workflows and scaling multi-cloud or hybrid compute environments.

8+ years of experience setting technical direction and driving engineering excellence across cross-functional engineering teams.

Other Qualification

Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Advanced proficiency in one or more scripting or programming languages, such as Ruby, Python, Bash, or Go.

In-depth understanding of enterprise server hardware, PXE boot, IPMI, DNS, DHCP, and core network protocols.

Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, OpenStack, Terraform, and enterprise monitoring frameworks.

Strong written and verbal communication skills, with experience collaborating across distributed teams, time zones, and communication styles.

Workday Pay Transparency Statement

The annualized base salary ranges for the primary location and any additional locations are listed below. Workday pay ranges vary based on work location. As a part of the total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Workday Bonus Plan or a role-specific commission/bonus, as well as annual refresh stock grants. Recruiters can share more detail during the hiring process. Each candidates compensation offer will be based on multiple factors including, but not limited to, geography, experience, skills, job duties, and business need, among other things. For more information regarding Workdays comprehensive benefits, please .

Our Approach to Flexible Work

With Flex Work, were combining the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote. Our approach enables our teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. We know that flexibility can take shape in many ways, so rather than a number of required days in-office each week, we simply spend at least half (50%) of our time each quarter in the office or in the field with our customers, prospects, and partners (depending on role). This means youll have the freedom to create a flexible schedule that caters to your business, team, and personal needs, while being intentional to make the most of time spent together. Those in our remote 2home office2 roles also have the opportunity to come together in our offices for important moments that matter.