Job Description

Business Area:

Engineering

Seniority Level:

Director

At Cloudera, we empower people to transform complex data into clear and actionable insights. With as much data under management as the hyperscalers, we're the preferred data partner for the top companies in almost every industry. Powered by the relentless innovation of the open source community, Cloudera advances digital transformation for the world’s largest enterprises.

Mission: Build the next-generation Agentic AI Data Platform

At Cloudera, we don't just manage data—we empower the world’s largest enterprises to transform complex data into a competitive edge. With a data footprint rivaling the hyperscalers, we are the essential partner for digital transformation, fueled by the relentless innovation of the open-source community.

Cloudera Anywhere Cloud is our revolutionary hybrid data and Agentic AI platform. Built on a modular, Kubernetes-native, and API-first foundation , it delivers a unified console and Marketplace to govern and deploy autonomous data and AI services seamlessly across any public cloud and your private data center.

We are seeking a visionary Principal Engineer to take the reins of the Marketplace experience—the crucial front door for all Cloudera Data Services, Machine Learning, and Agentic AI offerings. This is a high-impact Individual Contributor role, empowering you to shape the architectural destiny of Cloudera across a massive, multi-cloud environment, impacting thousands of global customers

Your Impact and Challenge:

• Architectural Authority: Lead and champion critical architecture and design discussions, setting the technical north star for the team and providing decisive direction.

• Feature Ownership: Partner with Product, Engineering, and cross-functional leaders to drive the delivery of massive, business-critical features across Cloudera’s Spark space.

• Hyperscale Systems: Design, build, and optimize systems operating on a truly massive scale—from hundreds to thousands of production cluster nodes.

• Cloud Evolution: Design and implement the next generation of our Kubernetes-based environment. Focus areas include advanced multi-tenancy, network policy, dynamic resource management, and cutting-edge service-mesh integration (Istio, Linkerd).

• Scale Engineering: Be the technical lead for massive scaling efforts, architecting the control plane and data plane to handle a 10x explosion in services and traffic. Establish and enforce platform-wide Service Level Objectives (SLOs).

• Developer Experience: Overhaul the Developer Control Plane. Design and build next-gen CI/CD pipelines and pioneering GitOps workflows. Drive the strategy for our internal developer portal (e.g., Backstage) to achieve unified tooling, documentation, and service lifecycle management.

• IaC Mastery: Author and maintain production-grade Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and/or Crossplane. Obliterate manual toil by automating cluster provisioning, node lifecycle, and dependency upgrades.

• Force Multiplier: Serve as a technical mentor to senior engineers, lead architecture review sessions, and author RFCs to forge consensus on high-stakes technical decisions. Your influence will extend to cross-engineering application developers.

• Technology Explorer: Harness and leverage a broad spectrum of technologies, including (but not limited to) Java, Go, AWS, Docker, Vault, Kubernetes, Argo, Istio, and Helm.

• Operational Excellence Advocate: Champion the highest standards of operational rigor, including unit testing, establishing stringent SLAs, and programming for ultimate resiliency and scalability.

The Core DNA We're Looking For:

• A relentless drive to innovate and an obsession with delivery, even amidst volatility.

• BE, MS, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or equivalent experience.

• 12+ years of experience building and scaling mission-critical infrastructure systems.

• Deep expertise in developing with Apache Spark or related data-processing technologies.

• Proven experience leading technical initiatives: from feature proposal through cross-team coordination and successful product delivery.

• The established ability to drive complex architecture discussions and provide clear, authoritative technical direction.

• Mastery of at least one core language: Java, Scala, Rust, C++, or Python.

• Exceptional collaboration and communication skills to rally teams and stakeholders.

Bonus Points for Edge:

• Hands-on experience with at least one major public cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) and/or private cloud platforms (OpenShift, Rancher).

• A track record of building and maintaining high-volume containerized applications on Kubernetes.

• Significant contributions to open-source projects.

• Iceberg, Polaris, and other catalogs.

What you can expect from us:

• Generous PTO Policy

• Support work life balance with Unplugged Days

• Flexible WFH Policy

• Mental & Physical Wellness programs

• Phone and Internet Reimbursement program

• Access to Continued Career Development

• Comprehensive Benefits and Competitive Packages

• Paid Volunteer Time

• Employee Resource Groups

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