Principal Software Engineer

Description
Work Arrangement
This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the successful candidate is expected to report to Sunnyvale, CA or Austin, TX Innovation Center three times per week.
The Role
General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and architectural direction across engineering pillars that support GM Commerce. This role will be responsible for defining, influencing, and driving the long-term technical vision of our platform to ensure scalability, performance, and innovation.
As a senior technical leader, you will partner with senior engineering managers, staff engineers, and cross-functional stakeholders to establish the technical bar, enable the adoption of modern engineering practices, and deliver high-quality, customer-focused solutions. You will be expected to provide architectural guidance, conduct design/code reviews, and mentor engineering talent across multiple teams.
What You'll Do

• Define and evolve the overarching technical vision and architecture across multiple product pillars.
• Drive consistent adoption of modern engineering practices, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, and resilient.
• Guide cloud-native architecture patterns leveraging Java, Quarkus, React, TypeScript, and modern AI/ML technologies.
• Provide technical direction and architectural guidance to engineering managers and staff engineers across all pillars.
• Serve as a trusted advisor for critical design decisions, technology adoption, and integration strategies.
• Partner with product and business stakeholders to align technical strategies with long-term business outcomes.
• Champion engineering best practices including CI/CD pipelines, observability, performance optimization, and automation.
• Ensure adherence to coding standards, design patterns, and maintainable architecture across diverse teams.
• Drive modernization initiatives such as legacy migrations and adoption of containerized, cloud-native approaches.
• Mentor and grow senior technical talent, raising overall engineering maturity.
• Foster alignment and collaboration across globally distributed engineering organizations.
• Influence leadership beyond engineering by advocating for innovation, technical investments, and platform scalability.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a principal, staff, or architect-level role.
• Extensive experience in architecture and design (architecture, design patterns, reliability and scaling) of new and existing systems.
• Extensive experience in one of the JVM languages, Java / Kotlin + SpringBoot.
• Proven success designing and scaling distributed, cloud-native systems and experience with at least one of the public cloud providers Azure, AWS, GCP.
• Strong understanding of security, observability, performance, and high-availability architectures.
• Demonstrated ability to influence at the organizational level, not just at the team level.
• Experience guiding multiple product areas or platforms within a large-scale, multi-pillar environment.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively with both engineers and executives.
• A passion for staying up-to-date with the latest industry trends and technologies.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Experience launching eCommerce features or platforms.
• Hands-on experience integrating 3rd Party API and commercial software into ecommerce products.
• Deep knowledge in technology transformation through building high scale, fault tolerant, resilient system.

Additional Information:
This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.
A company vehicle will be provided for this role with successful completion of a Motor Vehicle Report review.
GM DOES NOT PROVIDE IMMIGRATION-RELATED SPONSORSHIP FOR THIS ROLE. DO NOT APPLY FOR THIS ROLE IF YOU WILL NEED GM IMMIGRATION SPONSORSHIP NOW OR IN THE FUTURE. THIS INCLUDES DIRECT COMPANY SPONSORSHIP, ENTRY OF GM AS THE IMMIGRATION EMPLOYER OF RECORD ON A GOVERNMENT FORM, AND ANY WORK AUTHORIZATION REQUIRING A WRITTEN SUBMISSION OR OTHER IMMIGRATION SUPPORT FROM THE COMPANY (e.g., H-1B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc.)
Compensation : The compensation information is a good faith estimate only. It is based on what a successful applicant might be paid in accordance with applicable state laws. The compensation may not be representative for positions located outside of New York, Colorado, California, or Washington.

• The salary range for this role is 197,600 to 303,800.
• The actual base salary a successful candidate will be offered within this range will vary based on factors relevant to the position.
• Bonus Potential: An incentive pay program offers payouts based on company performance, job level, and individual performance.

Benefits:
Benefits: GM offers a variety of health and wellbeing benefit programs. Benefit options include medical, dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan, sickness and accident benefits, life insurance, paid vacation & holidays, tuition assistance programs, employee assistance program, GM vehicle discounts and more.
About GM
Our vision is a world with Zero Crashes, Zero Emissions and Zero Congestion and we embrace the responsibility to lead the change that will make our world better, safer and more equitable for all.
Why Join Us
We believe we all must make a choice every day - individually and collectively - to drive meaningful change through our words, our deeds and our culture. Every day, we want every employee to feel they belong to one General Motors team.
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Non-Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunities (U.S.)
General Motors is committed to being a workplace that is not only free of unlawful discrimination, but one that genuinely fosters inclusion and belonging. We strongly believe that providing an inclusive workplace creates an environment in which our employees can thrive and develop better products for our customers.
All employment decisions are made on a non-discriminatory basis without regard to sex, race, color, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, pregnancy or maternity status, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran or protected veteran, or any other similarly protected status in accordance with federal, state and local laws.
We encourage interested candidates to review the key responsibilities and qualifications for each role and apply for any positions that match their skills and capabilities. Applicants in the recruitment process may be required, where applicable, to successfully complete a role-related assessment(s) and/or a pre-employment screening prior to beginning employment. To learn more, visit How we Hire.
Accommodations
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