Principal Software Development Engineer; Kubernetes, AWS

Principal Software Development Engineer (Kubernetes, AWS)

Our Technology Team partners with teams across Expedia Group to create innovative products, services, and tools to deliver high-quality experiences for travelers, partners, and our employees. A singular technology platform powered by data and machine learning provides secure, differentiated, and personalized experiences that drive loyalty and traveler satisfaction.

As a Principal Engineer you will be part of an agile development team with extensive Linux, cloud, and containerization experience. You will play a key role in crafting the strategic technical goals for our group and leading the architecture, design, and building of a compute runtime platform based on Kubernetes that will be used by all engineering teams across Expedia.

• Design and Implement Core Platform Components:
  Evolve our Kubernetes‑based environment, focusing on multi‑tenancy, network policy, resource management, and service mesh integration (e.g., Istio, Linkerd).
• Architect for Scale and Reliability:
  Lead the technical design for scaling our control plane and data plane to handle a 10× increase in services and traffic; define and implement SLOs for the platform.
• Improve the Developer Control Plane:
  Design and build the next generation of our CI/CD pipelines and Git Ops workflows; drive the strategy for our internal developer portal (e.g., Backstage).
• Automate Infrastructure Lifecycle:
  Author and maintain production‑grade Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and/or Crossplane, automating cluster provisioning, node lifecycle, and dependency upgrades.
• Technical Leadership and Mentorship:
  Mentor senior engineers, lead architecture review sessions, author RFCs, and influence application developers and SREs across the organization.
• Production Debugging:
  Serve as the final escalation point for complex, cross‑cutting production incidents involving the underlying platform.
• Collaborate across product management, architecture, and engineering leads to deliver high‑capacity capabilities for our developer community.
• Explore and apply a broad range of technologies such as Java, Go, AWS, Docker, Hashicorp tools, Kubernetes, Argo, Istio, Helm, etc.
• Advocate for operational excellence, including unit testing, SLAs, resiliency, and scalability.
• Handle high‑stress scenarios with calm, critical thinking, and data‑driven decision making.

• 8+ years of experience in infrastructure automation, configuration management, or container orchestration.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Strong programming skills in Java, Go, Python, or Ruby.
• Experience with AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes/EKS.

• Experience with Stateless and Stateful workloads, Service Mesh or Service Discovery, Monitoring, Alerting, and Logging.
• Understanding of security development principles such as token management, encryption, and certificates.
• Experience with Continuous Integration tools like Jenkins.
• Experience building self‑service technology platform capabilities in container compute, traffic management, or API management spaces.
• Experience mentoring engineers and establishing operational standards across multiple projects.

The total cash range for this position in San Jose is $ to $ with potential to increase up to $ based on performance. Pay ranges may be modified in the future.

Expedia Group offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, paid time off, an Employee Assistance Program, wellness and travel reimbursements, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent membership.

If you need assistance with any part of the application or recruiting process due to a disability or other health condition, please reach out to our Recruiting Accommodations Team through the Accommodation Request.

Expedia is committed to creating an inclusive work environment with a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. This employer participates in E‑Verify.