The Role
The Principal Software Engineer will lead technical vision and architecture for business systems, mentor engineers, and ensure system scalability and security while optimizing costs. Responsibilities include designing high-performance backend services, integrating analytics tools, and driving modernization initiatives.
Summary Generated by Built In
We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical vision, architecture, and long-term health of our core business systems. You will design scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions primarily built on AWS cloud-native services, .NET backend ecosystem, Oracle PL/SQL for data-heavy logic, and Metabase for analytics & self-service BI.
This is a senior-most hands-on architecture role - you will combine deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, mentor senior engineers, make trade-off decisions that affect millions in cloud spend and developer productivity, and ensure the system remains evolvable for the next 5-10 years.
Key Responsibilities
Required Qualifications & Experience
Morningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to collaborate in-person each week as we've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis. In most of our locations, our hybrid work model is four days in-office each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you'll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.
I10_MstarIndiaPvtLtd Morningstar India Private Ltd. (Delhi) Legal Entity
This is a senior-most hands-on architecture role - you will combine deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, mentor senior engineers, make trade-off decisions that affect millions in cloud spend and developer productivity, and ensure the system remains evolvable for the next 5-10 years.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and evolve the overall technical and reference designs for mission-critical systems (microservices, event-driven patterns, data pipelines, reporting layer)
- Lead end-to-end architectural decisions across AWS (multi-account strategy, landing zone, networking, security posture, cost governance, disaster recovery)
- Design high-performance .NET (C#/.NET 6+) backend services - REST/GraphQL APIs, background workers, domain-driven design, clean/hexagonal architecture
- Architect data-intensive components using PL/SQL in Oracle databases - complex stored procedures, performant batch processing, data modeling, partitioning, materialized views
- Own the analytics & BI architecture - integrate Metabase with data sources (RDS, Redshift, S3/Parquet, Athena), design semantic layers, govern self-service analytics access, optimize query performance
- Create and maintain architectural runway: patterns, decision records (ADRs), reference implementations, golden paths for developers
- Conduct architecture reviews, threat modeling, and deep-dive technical due-diligence for major initiatives
- Collaborate closely with engineering managers, product managers, security, DevOps, and data teams to align architecture with business priorities
- Drive modernization initiatives (e.g. lift-and-shift → cloud-native, monolith → microservices, legacy PL/SQL → hybrid serverless patterns)
- Establish and enforce engineering excellence standards: observability (CloudWatch + X-Ray + custom metrics), CI/CD, IaC (Terraform/CDK/.NET), automated testing pyramid, security by design
- Mentor Staff/Senior engineers and lead communities of practice (architecture guild, .NET/AWS/Oracle chapters)
- Keep abreast of AWS Well-Architected Framework updates, .NET ecosystem evolution, Oracle database advancements, and BI tooling trends
Required Qualifications & Experience
- 12+ years of software engineering/architecture experience, with at least 5 years in a principal/senior or equivalent role
- Deep hands-on expertise in AWS (certifications like Solutions Architect Professional / DevOps Engineer Professional highly desirable) Strong experience with: ECS/EKS/Fargate, Lambda, API Gateway, SQS/SNS/EventBridge, RDS (Oracle/SQL Server), Aurora, S3, Glue, Athena, Step Functions, IAM, Organizations/SCPs, CloudFormation/CDK/Terraform
- Very strong .NET background - modern .NET 6/7/8, ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, Minimal APIs, gRPC, worker services, DDD/CQRS patterns
- Expert-level PL/SQL & Oracle Database design & tuning experience (10+ years preferred) Performance optimization, bulk processing, advanced indexing, partitioning, PL/SQL unit testing
- Practical experience integrating & extending Metabase in production environments (data source connectors, permissions model, embedding, caching, query governance)
- Proven track record designing systems that handle high transaction volume, large datasets, and strict SLAs (99.9%+ uptime)
- Strong understanding of distributed systems challenges, eventual consistency, CAP theorem trade-offs, saga/orchestration patterns
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code, GitOps, and modern DevOps practices
Morningstar is an equal opportunity employer
Morningstar's hybrid work environment gives you the opportunity to collaborate in-person each week as we've found that we're at our best when we're purposely together on a regular basis. In most of our locations, our hybrid work model is four days in-office each week. A range of other benefits are also available to enhance flexibility as needs change. No matter where you are, you'll have tools and resources to engage meaningfully with your global colleagues.
I10_MstarIndiaPvtLtd Morningstar India Private Ltd. (Delhi) Legal Entity
Skills Required
- 12+ years of software engineering/architecture experience
- 5 years in a principal/senior or equivalent role
- Deep hands-on expertise in AWS
- Strong .NET background
- Expert-level PL/SQL & Oracle Database design and tuning
- Practical experience with Metabase
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code, GitOps, and modern DevOps practices
What the Team is Saying
Anna
Team Lead of Software Engineering
Upasna
Software Engineer, Data Collections - AI R&D
Saurabh
Senior Software Engineer
Wendell
Head of Sales, Institutional Equity Research
Raaghavendar
Associate Software Engineer
Jeff
Head of Technology and Product
Morningstar Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time away options include a paid six‑week sabbatical every four years and flexible time off in North America, with broad usage reported in 2024. Feedback suggests these programs are a distinctive strength by market standards.
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Parental & Family Support — A global minimum beginning in 2025 provides at least 16 weeks paid leave for primary caregivers and up to 8 weeks for secondary caregivers, plus at least 6 weeks paid caregiving leave. This breadth positions family support as a clear pillar of the package.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — An optional Shared Ownership program lets employees direct part of a bonus into RSUs with a 50% company match. This structure adds a notable long‑term ownership component to total rewards.
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The Company
What We Do
At Morningstar, we believe in building great products in-house in a highly collaborative, agile environment where we focus on technical excellence, the user experience, and continuous improvement. Our technologists represent a range of skills and experience levels, but they all view their work as a craft and push technology’s boundaries.
Why Work With Us
Imagining big things is in our blood -- it's transformed us from a company with just a few employees in 1984 to a leading independent investment research company with a worldwide presence today. As of April 2020, we acquired Sustainalytics to drive long-term meaningful outcomes for investors in the ESG space. Join us on this exciting journey!
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Morningstar Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
Typical time on-site:
3 days a week
