Principal Software Engineer at NetApp
Bellevue, WA
$227,800–$338,800from the description
Jul 13, 2026
Bellevue, WA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A hands-on principal engineering role focused on designing and building an enterprise AI agent platform — covering agent orchestration, retrieval over enterprise data, tool-calling, and multi-cloud execution. The position combines deep individual contribution (architecture, production code, APIs and SDKs) with team-wide technical leadership including design reviews, standards-setting, and mentoring. Best suited to a senior engineer with a strong distributed-systems background and ideally prior exposure to LLM-powered or agentic product development.
Principal level · 12+ years · National · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 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
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $138,970 (middle half $107,524–$175,762). 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 (7)
No specific work location or metro is stated in the posting; the compensation note mentions that salary may vary by candidate location, suggesting a distributed/remote-eligible or multi-site role, but the JD does not explicitly confirm fully remote work.
The 12+ years overall and 7+ years cloud architecture requirements are stated in a dedicated 'Experience Requirements' section, treated as hard gates. The 7-year cloud figure is attached to the hyperscaler requirement (AWS/Azure/GCP) and is captured on that skill.
Server-side language requirement (Node.js, Python, Java, Go, or Rust) is a single interchangeable gate; Node.js is listed first and the others are captured as alternatives.
Front-end experience (TypeScript, React or Angular) is explicitly called 'a plus' in the Required Qualifications section — an inline optional qualifier — so these are marked preferred.
The degree requirement accepts 'equivalent practical experience' as a substitute for a Bachelor's degree, so no minimum degree is hard-required.
All Preferred Qualifications items (LLM/agent systems, RAG, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform/CloudFormation, enterprise infrastructure background) are listed under an explicit 'Preferred Qualifications' heading and are marked preferred.
'Distributed systems' appears in the Required Qualifications section as a design/build requirement; it is retained as a named architectural capability gate rather than a generic concept because the JD explicitly calls it out as a distinct deliverable alongside cloud-native products and developer infrastructure.
Read the full posting
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