Principal Developer Advocate; watsonx.data Professional San Jose

Principal Developer Advocate (watsonx.data)

IBM Software transforms client challenges into solutions. Building the world’s leading AI‑powered, cloud‑native products that shape the future of business and society. Our legacy of innovation creates endless opportunities for IBMers to learn, grow, and make an impact on a global scale.

IBM watsonx.data is an enterprise‑grade, open data lakehouse designed to help organizations scale AI workloads and analytics by integrating both structured and unstructured data. It acts as a single, governed, unified data platform that can connect to data anywhere—whether stored in an on‑premises data lake or on cloud platforms.

As a Principal Developer Advocate, you’re passionate about improving how developers learn, build, and succeed using IBM technology. In this role, you will take a senior, hands‑on role within our Developer Relations team for watsonx.data and help drive the execution of our developer adoption strategy for our Lakehouse technologies such as Presto, Spark and Velox. You’ll work closely with the existing Dev Rel team to turn strategy into concrete outcomes.

As part of the watsonx.data product management organization, you’ll also work closely with the product, engineering and design teams building the product. You’ll help scale programs, improve how we operate, and raise the bar on the quality and consistency of our developer‑facing work.

• High School Diploma/GED

• Bachelor’s Degree

• 8+ years of experience in developer advocacy, Dev Rel, or technical evangelism roles.
• Demonstrated communication and storytelling skills across written, video, and live formats.
• Considered an expert in technologies such as Presto, Spark and Velox.
• Experience using APIs, SDKs, and developer tools.
• Strong presence in developer communities, with hands‑on experience organizing and hosting virtual developer events.

• Proven ability to execute and scale developer relations initiatives as part of a team.
• Experience building and scaling developer communities.
• Experience advocating for open‑core software.
• Willingness to travel for conferences, meetups, and community events as needed.

• Healthcare benefits including medical, prescription drug coverage, dental, vision, and mental health & wellbeing.
• Financial programs such as 401(k), cash balance pension plan, the IBM Employee Stock Purchase Plan, financial counseling, life insurance, short & long‑term disability coverage, and opportunities for performance‑based salary incentive programs.
• Generous paid time off, including 12 holidays, minimum 56 hours sick time, 120 hours vacation, and parental bonding leave.
• Paid family leave benefits where required by applicable law.
• Training and educational resources on a personalized, AI‑driven learning platform to grow skills and obtain industry‑recognized certifications.
• Diverse and inclusive employee resource groups, giving & volunteer opportunities, and discounts on retail products, services & experiences.

IBM is proud to be an equal‑opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, or other characteristics protected by the applicable law. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

This position requires the applicant to be able to work without visa sponsorship.

• Projected Minimum Salary per year: $
• Projected Maximum Salary per year: $