Principal Software Engineer

The application window is expected to close on: 09/29/2026

Splunk’s Platform Engineering team is evolving the core platform to run reliably on Kubernetes across cloud and customer-managed environments. The team builds the runtime foundations, orchestration patterns, lifecycle capabilities, and platform services that enable Splunk products to move faster on a common cloud-native substrate. We are a senior, systems-oriented group working across core engineering, product, security, operations, and customer-facing teams. Our work is complex, high-impact, and central to Splunk’s FY27 priorities around Kubernetes adoption, cloud growth, customer-managed platform parity, and future innovation.

This is an opportunity to help shape how a large-scale enterprise platform modernizes while preserving the reliability and compatibility customers depend on.

Lead technical direction for Kubernetes-based platform architecture that makes Splunk easier to deploy, operate, upgrade, diagnose, and evolve. Translate complex product, customer, and feature-team requirements into practical designs, engineering contracts, and implementation plans. Partner across core runtime, Kubernetes operator, configuration, application platform, search, security, cloud, and product teams to align execution around reusable architecture. Identify cross-component dependencies, failure modes, lifecycle gaps, and migration risks before they become release or customer-impacting issues.

Drive incremental modernization of a mature enterprise platform while preserving customer trust, compatibility, and operational quality.

• Bachelors in related field with 15 years experience.
• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience building backend, platform, infrastructure, or distributed systems.
• 5+ years of experience designing, building, or operating production distributed systems.
• 2+ years of hands‑on Kubernetes experience, including workload orchestration, operators/controllers, or cloud‑native deployment patterns.
• Experience designing production APIs, lifecycle orchestration, configuration systems, upgrade systems, or platform services.
• Professional experience with at least one backend/platform programming language such as Go, C++, Java, Python.

• Experience with Kubernetes operators, control planes, developer platforms, infrastructure automation, or large-scale platform services.
• Experience modernizing legacy or monolithic enterprise systems toward cloud-native operating models.
• Experience with enterprise customer commitments, regulated environments, cloud/on-prem deployment variance, and long-lived compatibility expectations.
• Ability to synthesize ambiguous cross-team requirements into clear technical direction, tradeoffs, and execution plans.
• Interest in using AI‑assisted engineering tools responsibly for code comprehension, review preparation, test planning, incident triage, documentation, or migration analysis.

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.

The starting salary range posted for this position is $ to $ and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.

Individual pay is determined by the candidate's…