Lead Principal Application Software Engineer
Oracle · Columbia, SC
$104,600–$264,100from the description
Jun 29, 2026
Columbia, SC
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor architecture role focused on defining and evolving a large-scale platform engineering organization's technical direction, covering distributed systems, identity and authorization, security, and developer productivity. The position involves setting standards for AI-assisted software delivery, leading cross-team design and risk mitigation, and mentoring senior engineers. It suits a seasoned architect with deep distributed systems and security experience who can influence broadly across engineering and product leadership.
Principal level · 10+ years · Remote · Secret clearance · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 9 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
What the occupation pays Median $135,980 (middle half $105,210–$171,980). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (9)
The job title is not stated in the posting; Oracle's internal career level 'IC5' corresponds to a Distinguished Engineer / Principal Engineer individual-contributor band — this is the basis for classifying seniority as Principal rather than Senior.
SOC classification is Medium confidence: the role is a hands-on IC architect (15-1252) but carries significant cross-org influence, mentoring of principal/senior engineers, and roadmap partnership that edges toward 11-3021. The IC5 level and explicit 'hands-on contributions' language tips it to 15-1252.
Clearance is stated as 'must be able to obtain and maintain the required security clearance' with U.S. citizenship required; the specific level is not named. Classified as Secret (the minimum common gate for this type of enterprise cloud/platform work) — the actual level may differ.
Location is US-based but no specific city or metro is given; CBSA fields are left blank.
Degree requirement is None: the JD states 'BS in Computer Science or related field (or equivalent practical experience)', making the degree substitutable.
Cloud platform experience (OCI preferred) appears under Preferred Qualifications; OCI is listed as the primary with major hyperscalers as alternatives.
Several skills (identity architecture, zero trust, user provisioning, event-driven architecture, audit logging, policy-as-code, containers) appear exclusively under Preferred Qualifications and are marked accordingly.
Ignored 4 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): platform architecture, AI-assisted development, identity architecture, user provisioning.
Requires a Secret clearance — the cleared population is a small fraction of this occupation, so the real candidate pool is materially smaller than the estimate below, which does not model clearance.
Read the full posting
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