# Principal Software Engineer - Data Backend > Weekday AI · India (Remote) · Full-time · Posted 2026-09-04 **Workplace:** remote **Department:** Weekday's Client via platform ## Description **This role is for one of Weekday’s clients** Min Experience: 12+ years Location: India JobType: full-time We are seeking a highly experienced **Principal Software Engineer – Data Backend** to drive technical excellence across data-intensive backend systems. This is a highly hands-on Individual Contributor role focused on architecture, distributed systems, scalability, performance, and production-grade software engineering. The ideal candidate will bring deep software engineering expertise to complex data systems, helping shape technical direction, lead high-impact engineering initiatives, mentor senior engineers, and remain closely involved in system design, coding, performance optimization, and production operations. This is not a conventional data engineering or people-management role. The position is suited for a technical leader who can influence architecture across multiple teams while continuing to build and operate critical systems. ## Requirements ### Key Responsibilities - Own the architecture and delivery of major data-intensive backend products or platform initiatives. - Design and build scalable systems across areas such as batch and stream processing, data ingestion, orchestration, semantic systems, ontology layers, analytics, query processing, and data products. - Drive system design decisions focused on scalability, reliability, maintainability, observability, performance, and data quality. - Remain deeply hands-on with critical code, technical designs, architecture reviews, and production systems. - Establish and uphold engineering standards for code quality, testing, operability, reliability, and system design. - Identify and implement performance and cost optimizations across distributed compute, storage, querying, and data-serving layers. - Provide technical direction across multiple engineering teams while remaining actively involved in implementation and delivery. - Lead organization-wide or cross-functional technical initiatives from strategy and design through execution. - Mentor senior and staff-level engineers and help strengthen engineering practices, technical judgment, and system-design capabilities across the organization. - Drive cross-team technical alignment and resolve complex architectural and engineering challenges. - Evaluate technology choices and architectural trade-offs for high-scale data and backend systems. - Contribute to improving system observability, reliability, operational maturity, and production readiness. - Continuously identify opportunities to improve engineering efficiency, system performance, and long-term maintainability. ### Required Qualifications & Experience - Typically **12–17 years of software engineering experience**, with sustained Staff+ or Principal-level technical scope. - Proven experience building high-scale, data-intensive software products or distributed systems from the ground up and operating them in production. - Exceptional coding ability with strong standards for code quality, testing, reliability, operability, and maintainability. - Deep expertise in distributed systems, backend architecture, data systems, and performance engineering. - Strong understanding of scalability, fault tolerance, distributed computation, storage, querying, and system performance trade-offs. - Demonstrated ability to lead large technical initiatives spanning multiple teams without relying on formal management authority. - Ability to influence technical strategy and architecture while remaining deeply involved in implementation. - Strong mentoring capabilities with a track record of raising the technical bar for senior engineers. - Experience working with open-source technologies and building systems around open-source components is strongly preferred. - Strong understanding of software engineering principles beyond simply assembling managed cloud services. ### Relevant Technical Background Candidates with experience building or scaling the following types of systems are particularly relevant: - Distributed query or analytics engines - Large-scale batch or stream processing systems - Data-intensive backend platforms - Data products and serving systems - High-performance ingestion infrastructure - Semantic or ontology platforms - Distributed storage and compute systems - Performance-oriented data processing systems - Open-source distributed systems and infrastructure Exact technology keywords are less important than demonstrated depth in engineering judgment, architecture, coding, scalability, and ownership. ### What We Are Looking For We are looking for a **Principal-level software engineer who continues to code and build**. The ideal candidate combines architectural depth with exceptional implementation skills and can move comfortably between high-level technical strategy and low-level engineering details. You should be capable of taking ownership of ambiguous, technically complex problems, influencing multiple engineering teams, and delivering systems that operate reliably at scale. ### This Role Is Not a Fit For - Primarily CRUD or conventional SaaS backend development - Traditional ETL, BI, or reporting-focused data engineering - Data engineering limited primarily to assembling managed services - Platform operations roles without significant software engineering depth - Candidates with narrow expertise in individual technologies without broader systems knowledge - Pure architecture roles where hands-on coding is no longer part of the day-to-day work - Engineering management positions without continued technical ownership ### Key Competencies - Exceptional software engineering and coding ability - Strong distributed systems expertise - Deep system design and architecture capabilities - Performance and cost optimization - Technical leadership and cross-team influence - Production engineering and operational excellence - Strong analytical and problem-solving skills - Mentoring and technical development of senior engineers - High ownership and engineering judgment ### Must-Have Skills - Distributed Systems - Software Architecture - Backend Engineering ### Good-to-Have Skills - Apache Kafka - Query Optimization - Open Source ## Apply [Apply at Weekday AI](https://apply.workable.com/weekday-1/j/65BE487A45/apply) --- Powered by [Workable](https://www.workable.com)