Principal Engineer, Software Quality & Engineering Governance
About The Position
The Principal Engineer, Software Quality & Engineering Governance establishes and governs enterprise software engineering standards, code quality practices, architecture review processes, and controls for AI-assisted software development. This role serves as the technical authority for software quality and engineering excellence, ensuring that solutions developed by internal teams, external partners, or AI-assisted tools meet enterprise standards for security, maintainability, scalability, performance, reliability, and reusability. The role develops governance frameworks, automated quality gates, technical guardrails, review processes, and engineering best practices that support rapid delivery while maintaining technical excellence. It influences teams across multiple technology stacks, including Python, .NET, SAP, cloud-native applications, integrations, APIs, and emerging AI-enabled solutions. The position also mentors and enables engineers, architects, technical leads, and development managers, promoting continuous improvement and engineering excellence.
Requirements
- High school diploma or GED.
- 10 or more years of software engineering experience.
- 5 or more years leading architecture, software quality, engineering governance, or technical review functions.
Nice To Haves
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or Information Systems.
- Experience governing AI-assisted software development and generative AI coding platforms.
- Experience with Python, .NET, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, cloud technologies, and enterprise integrations.
- Experience with SonarQube, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitLab, or comparable engineering platforms.
- Experience implementing engineering scorecards, technical debt programs, and software quality frameworks.
- Knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks and modern platform engineering practices.
- Experience leading global engineering transformation initiatives.
- Deep hands-on experience reviewing and governing software development across multiple technology stacks.
- Experience establishing software development standards, governance models, and engineering best practices.
- Strong understanding of software architecture, design patterns, secure coding practices, DevSecOps, CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native application development, API and integration architecture, automated testing strategies, and performance engineering.
- Experience operating in large-scale enterprise environments.
Responsibilities
- Establish and maintain enterprise-wide software engineering standards, development practices, and technical governance frameworks.
- Define coding standards, design principles, architecture patterns, documentation requirements, and development lifecycle controls.
- Create and maintain reusable development frameworks, templates, libraries, and reference architectures.
- Drive consistent software engineering practices across global development teams.
- Serve as the enterprise authority for software quality and code review practices.
- Review critical applications, architectural decisions, and high-impact development initiatives.
- Ensure application code aligns with functional requirements, design standards, maintainability expectations, and enterprise architecture principles.
- Establish processes for code certification, production readiness reviews, and technical quality assessments.
- Define governance standards for AI-generated software artifacts and establish review, validation, approval, and traceability processes for AI-assisted code development.
- Ensure AI-generated solutions meet enterprise security, quality, regulatory, and maintainability requirements; develop policies and controls for responsible adoption of AI development tools.
- Partner with development teams to implement automated quality controls throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
- Define and monitor quality metrics, including code coverage, technical debt, code complexity, security vulnerabilities, performance benchmarks, reliability measures, and defect escape rates.
- Establish automated CI/CD quality gates to improve consistency and reduce delivery risk.
- Lead architecture and technical design reviews for strategic initiatives; evaluate solutions for scalability, extensibility, resilience, security, and operational supportability.
- Ensure alignment with enterprise architecture standards and technology roadmaps, and identify opportunities to reduce technical debt and improve platform quality.
- Define performance engineering standards and optimization practices; review resource utilization, scalability, throughput, latency, and operational efficiency.
- Establish application performance benchmarks and acceptance criteria across multiple technology platforms.
- Mentor software engineers, architects, technical leads, and development managers through coaching, training, and community leadership.
- Enable development teams through automation, self-service tooling, standards, and reusable assets rather than manual governance processes.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives that improve software quality while accelerating delivery.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Wellness incentives
- Retirement benefits
- Paid vacation days, up to 15 days
- Paid sick days, up to 5 days
- Paid personal leave, up to 5 days
- Paid holidays, up to 13 days
- Birth and adoption leave
- Parental leave
- Family and medical leave
- Bereavement leave
- Jury duty leave
- Military leave
- Purchased vacation
- Short-term and long-term disability
- Life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment insurance
- Health Savings Account
- Health Care Spending Account
- Dependent Care Spending Account
- Tuition assistance
- Short-term cash incentives, subject to plan requirements
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
Education Level
High school or GED
