Principal Software Engineer - Confluence AI

Atlassian • Mountain View, CA

9h • $174,051 - $273,775

About The Position

As a Principal Software Engineer in Atlassian’s Confluence AI group, you will lead development of high-quality AI experiences that help teams create, discover, and collaborate on knowledge. You will shape technical strategy across the full stack, applying advances in AI to improve product quality, user trust, adoption, and growth. You will work closely with product, design, engineering, analytics, and machine learning teams to turn emerging technologies into reliable, intuitive capabilities that deliver lasting customer value.

The role includes setting technical direction across user experiences, backend services, and AI integrations; leading complex initiatives from architecture and prototyping through launch and iteration; and designing scalable, resilient systems that meet performance, reliability, security, and cost requirements. You will advance AI quality through evaluation, representative test datasets, user feedback, production monitoring, and collaboration on grounding, context retrieval, orchestration, and safeguards.

You will build intuitive full-stack experiences, use analytics and experimentation to improve adoption and sustained customer value, and lead cross-functional initiatives across Confluence and Atlassian. The position also involves mentoring engineers, raising engineering standards, developing reusable capabilities, communicating technical strategy and tradeoffs, and guiding investments in line with Confluence AI and Atlassian platform strategy.

Atlassians may choose to work from an office, from home, or a combination of the two. The company can hire in any country where it has a legal entity. The role may be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.

Responsibilities

• Drive complex technical decisions that shape Confluence AI across teams and multiple quarters.
• Lead large and complex initiatives from architecture and prototyping through launch and iteration.
• Set technical direction across user experiences, backend services, and AI integrations, balancing delivery speed, quality, and maintainability.
• Design scalable, resilient systems that meet performance, reliability, security, and cost requirements.
• Apply advances in generative AI, retrieval, agents, and evaluation to improve the usefulness, accuracy, and consistency of Confluence AI experiences.
• Build quality into the product lifecycle through automated evaluations, representative test datasets, user feedback, and production monitoring.
• Prototype and assess emerging technologies, adopting approaches that measurably improve customer outcomes.
• Partner with machine learning and platform teams to improve grounding, context retrieval, orchestration, and safeguards.
• Establish continuous improvement processes that connect production insights to engineering priorities.
• Build intuitive full-stack experiences that make AI capabilities easy to discover, understand, and incorporate into everyday workflows.
• Partner with product, design, and analytics to identify adoption barriers and turn insights into targeted improvements.
• Define and track measures of AI quality, activation, repeat usage, retention, and customer value.
• Use experimentation to understand how quality and usability improvements contribute to sustained growth.
• Prioritize experiences that earn user trust and deliver recurring value across Confluence.
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and data scientists to deliver cohesive AI experiences.
• Lead initiatives across Confluence and Atlassian, aligning shared capabilities with product needs.
• Communicate technical strategy, tradeoffs, and results clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Bridge frontend, backend, AI infrastructure, and analytics to ensure end-to-end ownership of customer outcomes.
• Mentor engineers across levels and strengthen full-stack engineering, AI integration, and experimentation practices.
• Raise engineering standards through technical guidance, design reviews, and hands-on contributions.
• Develop reusable capabilities and practices that help teams deliver high-quality AI experiences more effectively.
• Share learning across the organization and foster curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Make informed decisions balancing customer impact, technical feasibility, delivery speed, risk, and cost.
• Reduce ambiguity through focused prototypes, experiments, and measurable success criteria.
• Connect individual capabilities to a coherent Confluence AI strategy and broader Atlassian platform direction.
• Anticipate evolving customer needs and technology shifts, guiding investments that support durable product quality and growth.

Benefits

• The role may be eligible for benefits, bonuses, commissions, and equity.
• Atlassian offers health and wellbeing resources.
• Atlassian offers paid volunteer days.
• Atlassian provides other perks and benefits to support employees, their families, and engagement with local communities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal
• Education Level: No Education Listed