Senior Principal Engineer (US)

Bentley Systemsorporated • Philadelphia, PA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Bentley Systems is seeking a delivery-focused Senior Principal Engineer to build, own, and rapidly deliver the end-to-end technical architecture of the Bentley Developer Platform. The platform includes the front-end developer experience, API gateway, standards, authentication, metering, and billing infrastructure supporting Bentley’s developer APIs and MCP servers. This is a hands-on technical leadership role requiring ownership of complex delivery challenges, architectural direction, production coding, pull request reviews, and senior technical guidance for the engineering team.

The role works closely with Product and engineering teams across the API portfolio to define and maintain API design standards, security models, and integration patterns. It owns platform architecture and governance from developer experience through the API registry, including commercialization, adoption, support, monitoring, analytics, telemetry, hub listing requirements, and migration paths for existing APIs. AI and MCP surfaces are to be treated as first-class components of the architecture, with documented agent integration patterns. The position also partners with the Engineering Manager on hiring, team structure, and delivery sequencing, and with the CIO organization on enterprise application, ERP, and unified architecture.

Requirements

• At least 12 years of software engineering experience, including significant time architecting large-scale systems.
• Demonstrated ability to own comprehensive developer platform architecture from front-end developer experience through API registry, encompassing commercialization, adoption, support, and analytics.
• Deep, hands-on experience evaluating, implementing, and operating enterprise API management and integration platforms, such as MuleSoft, Apigee, Kong, or Workato, and developer portal frameworks such as Backstage.
• Proven track record of architecting and assembling a new API platform by integrating enterprise tools and writing custom software where needed to create a seamless, customer-facing developer experience.
• Experience partnering closely with Product teams to define and establish global API standards enabling monitoring, authentication, metering, and registration.
• Strong technical expertise in OAuth 2.0/OIDC, token handling, and platform security models.
• Hands-on experience engineering distributed systems, event streaming, API gateways, routing, usage-based billing pipelines, and ERP/settlement integrations.
• Ability to combine hands-on coding with communication skills to work credibly and collaboratively with multiple product engineering teams.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with AI/agent integration patterns and MCP.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the architecture of the developer platform, including API gateway, authentication, metering, billing integration, and settlement.
• Own the end-to-end platform architecture from developer experience through the registry, including commercialization, adoption, support, monitoring, and analytics.
• Work with the Product team to establish API standards supporting monitoring, authentication, metering, and registration.
• Write production code, review pull requests, provide senior hands-on technical contribution, and unblock engineers on the critical path.
• Serve as the primary technical interface between the Developer Platform, Product & Technology, and product engineering teams.
• Jointly develop and publish API Design Standards v1 with product teams, ensuring standards reflect implementation realities and are adopted in practice.
• Define and govern platform standards, including telemetry schema, hub listing requirements, and security and integration patterns across API families.
• Establish IMS OAuth as the standard authentication model across platform surfaces.
• Define and document migration paths for existing APIs to meet platform standards.
• Ensure AI and MCP surfaces are first-class components of the platform architecture and taxonomy, with documented agent integration patterns alongside REST APIs.
• Partner with the Engineering Manager on technical hiring, team structure, and delivery sequencing.
• Partner with the CIO organization on enterprise application and ERP integration and unified architecture.

Benefits

• Attractive salary and benefits package.
• Bentley Impact Day: a day off work to volunteer with an organization of choice.
• Colleague recognition award programs and the Bentley Achievers platform.
• Global initiatives and resource groups supporting inclusion, belonging, and colleague wellbeing.

What This Job Offers

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