Principal Software Engineer - SaaS

General Motors • Austin, MI

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Role General Motors is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to provide technical leadership and architectural direction for enterprise platform rationalization initiatives, driving the evolution of mission-critical systems toward secure, scalable, SaaS-focused architectures. This role requires demonstrated experience with make-vs-buy decisions and lifecycle management of enterprise systems. The successful candidate will define modernization roadmaps, evaluate migration approaches, ensure transactional integrity and operational resilience, and partner closely with IT, operations, and business stakeholders to deliver long term transformation. In addition, the successful candidate will be expected to drive make-vs-buy debates with a focus on protecting sustainable competitive advantages.

Requirements

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a principal, staff, or architect-level role.
• Demonstrated expertise in strategic modernization of legacy platforms.
• Demonstrated experience in enterprise-level change management and platform migration.
• Demonstrated experience conducting vendor lock-in analyses, COTS evaluations and platform retirement.
• Strong understanding of security, observability, performance, and high-availability architectures.
• Comfortable operating in highly ambiguous and dynamic environments.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and mentoring abilities, with a passion for driving value through technology.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Demonstrated experience with multiple modernization patterns (e.g., strangler, domain decomposition).
• Experience migrating to SaaS-driven platforms where the core business expectation is ‘no one notices’.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the over-arching technical vision and architecture across multiple modernization pillars.
• Drive consistent adoption of practices that ensure reliability, scalability, resilience, and security.
• Challenge legacy assumptions, constraints, and development patterns.
• Identify and drive investments in sustainable competitive advantages, while maintaining or reducing total cost of ownership.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to IT leadership and executives for critical design decisions, technology adoption, and integration strategies.
• Mentor and grow senior technical talent, raising overall capability and maturity.
• Foster alignment and collaboration across globally distributed engineering organizations.
• Influence leadership beyond IT by advocating for innovation and technical investments.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal