Principal Software Engineer

Fivetran is building data pipelines to power the modern data stack for thousands of companies

Fivetran is looking for a Principal Software Engineer to join our Platform Engineering Group, focused on building and evolving the core systems that power our data movement platform

In this role, you will define and drive the long-term technical vision for critical platform components that enable Fivetran to scale from thousands to tens of thousands of customers

You will operate at the intersection of architecture, execution, and organizational influence — solving deeply complex distributed systems challenges while shaping engineering direction across multiple teams

Define Technical Strategy: Set the long-term architectural vision for core platform systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and efficiency

Lead Complex System Design: Drive the design and evolution of large-scale distributed systems that power Fivetran’s data movement platform

Drive Cross-Team Initiatives: Lead high-impact projects spanning multiple teams, align stakeholders, and ensure successful execution

Raise the Engineering Bar: Establish best practices for system design, code quality, and operational excellence across the organization

Mentor and Influence: Guide and mentor senior and staff engineers, shaping technical decision-making beyond your immediate team

Improve Platform Performance: Identify and lead efforts to optimize system performance, reliability, and cost at scale

Champion Innovation: Evaluate and introduce new technologies and approaches to improve developer experience and platform capabilities- If you are passionate about building highly reliable, scalable systems and influencing engineering excellence at scale, this role is a strong fit

Ownership & Ambiguity: Track record of driving ambiguous, high-impact problems from definition to execution

Technical Leadership: Demonstrated experience leading cross-team technical initiatives and influencing engineering direction

System Design Mastery: Proven ability to design and evolve complex, scalable, and reliable platform architectures

Communication & Influence: Strong ability to communicate complex technical ideas and influence senior stakeholders

Strong Programming Skills: Expertise in backend development (Java preferred) with a solid foundation in data structures and system fundamentals

Performance & Reliability: Experience optimizing system performance, scalability, and cost in high-throughput systems

Extensive Experience: 12+ years of software engineering experience, with deep expertise in building and operating large-scale distributed systems

Experience working in startup environments

Experience in data processing (ETL, ELT) and/or cloud-based platforms