Lead Principal Core Infrastructure Engineer

Nashville, TNFull-timePosted Jul 27, 2026

The Lead Principal Core Infrastructure Engineer mentors engineering teams and leads the architecture of highly scalable, interdependent distributed systems. This role identifies and eliminates performance and scalability bottlenecks for hyperscale workloads, defines scalability requirements with stakeholders, and designs elastic, high-impact systems while driving innovation in data plane platforms.

The engineer architects and oversees fault-tolerant, in-service-upgradable systems, optimizes resilience mechanisms such as load shedding, throttling, and rate limiting, and establishes SLO-aligned standards for durability and availability across dependent services. The role also defines KPIs and advanced telemetry, applies formal verification techniques for complex features, and develops robust replication and synchronization strategies.

Additionally, this position leads the resolution of complex production issues, establishes operational readiness and standard operating procedures, directs incident response and root cause analyses, architects advanced security controls, drives compliance and remediation efforts, and delivers enterprise-scale automation through Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automated patching, updates, and rollback strategies.

Key Responsibilities

Lead the architecture and design of highly scalable, resilient, and distributed cloud infrastructure systems that support hyperscale workloads.
Drive performance, scalability, and reliability improvements by identifying bottlenecks and implementing architectural optimizations.
Design fault-tolerant, highly available systems with automated failover, replication, and disaster recovery capabilities while ensuring compliance with Service Level Objectives (SLOs).
Define and implement observability standards, including KPIs, telemetry, monitoring, and alerting to maintain system health and operational excellence.
Apply advanced engineering practices, including formal verification, distributed systems design, and data consistency strategies, to ensure system correctness and availability.
Lead the diagnosis and resolution of complex production issues, establish operational readiness standards, and drive continuous improvements through incident response and root cause analysis.
Architect secure, compliant cloud infrastructure by implementing enterprise security controls, remediation strategies, and governance best practices.
Champion Infrastructure as Code (IaC), automation, and modern deployment practices to enable safe, reliable, and efficient software delivery.
Partner with cross-functional engineering, product, and business stakeholders to define technical strategy and deliver high-impact initiatives.
Mentor senior engineers, influence architectural direction, and foster engineering excellence through technical leadership, hiring, and knowledge sharing.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
12+ years of experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems in cloud or enterprise environments.
Deep expertise in distributed systems architecture, cloud infrastructure, networking, storage, and compute platforms.
Strong experience with high availability, fault tolerance, scalability, observability, and performance optimization for mission-critical services.
Proficiency in one or more programming languages such as Java, Go, C++, Python, or Rust.
Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, or similar), CI/CD pipelines, and cloud automation.
Proven experience leading complex technical initiatives and influencing architectural decisions across multiple engineering teams.
Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and incident management skills, including leading root cause analysis for complex production issues.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills with the ability to influence technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

Master's degree or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
Experience building hyperscale cloud services or infrastructure platforms.
Experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and cloud-native technologies.
Knowledge of formal verification methods (such as TLA+) and distributed consensus algorithms.
Experience with public cloud platforms such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
Demonstrated technical thought leadership through patents, publications, open-source contributions, conference presentations, or other industry recognition.
Experience mentoring senior engineers and driving engineering excellence across large, geographically distributed organizations.

Minimum Job Qualifications
Education and/or Experience:
15 years of experience in software development
OR
Bachelor's of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 11 years of experience in software development
OR
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 11 years of experience in software development
OR
Master's of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 9 years of experience in software development
OR
Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 9 years of experience in software development
OR
Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 7 year of experience in software development.

Job Skills:
Same skills as prior level plus;
Data Management: Demonstrated ability in or knowledge of data management, including designing, operationalizing, securing, and monitoring data pipelines.
Data Integration: Demonstrated ability in or knowledge of data integration, including specifying and using services to load and manage data from various sources.

Cloud - Cloud Platforms Experience:
5 year of academic or professional experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud).
Testing and Automation Experience:
10 years of experience working in testing and automation at the system level.
Distributed Systems Experience:
4 year of experience working with delivering and operating large-scale distributed systems.

Preferred Job Qualifications
Education and/or Experience:
16 years of experience in software development
OR
Bachelor's of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 12 years of experience in software development
OR
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 12 years of experience in software development
OR
Master's of Technology (M.Tech) Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 10 years of experience in software development
OR
Master's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 10 years of experience in software development
OR
Doctorate in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Mathematics, Physics, or related field AND 8 years of experience in software development.
People Leadership / Management Experience:
5 year of experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle Cloud).