Senior Principal, Solution Test & Automation Engineer

Hewlett Packard Enterprise • Sunnyvale, CA

2d • $187,000 - $377,500 • Hybrid

About The Position

HPE Networking is seeking a Senior Principal Solution Test & Automation Engineer to lead quality engineering for large-scale networking and distributed software solutions. This highly technical individual-contributor role has substantial technical impact on strategic products, architectural initiatives, and customer success. It combines software testing expertise, system-level engineering, customer engagement, and technical leadership. The successful candidate will serve as an authority on complex quality engineering challenges, advance automation and validation, and influence product quality, scalability, observability, and reliability across the product lifecycle.

The engineer will partner with engineering, architecture, product management, sales engineering, services, support, and customers to validate complex networking solutions, establish scalable quality practices, and improve engineering productivity and product quality. They will provide cross-functional technical leadership, mentor engineers, and help shape the future of solution validation and automation.

The role is based in Sunnyvale, California, and is designated hybrid, with an average requirement of two days per week in an HPE office. The expected California base salary range is $187,000–$377,500 annually; variable incentives may also be offered. Actual offers may vary based on location, experience, education or training, and skills.

Requirements

• Expert-level programming expertise in Python, Go, or C++, with deep proficiency in at least one language.
• Extensive experience designing and building automation platforms, frameworks, and quality engineering ecosystems.
• Experience integrating large-scale automated testing into CI/CD environments.
• Proven history of driving transformational automation initiatives.
• Strong understanding of Linux/UNIX operating systems, networking, processes, memory management, and system internals.
• Extensive experience validating distributed and multi-component systems.
• Deep hands-on expertise configuring and validating multi-vendor networking environments.
• Experience supporting service provider, enterprise, and cloud networking deployments.
• Strong knowledge of performance testing and traffic-generation platforms such as Ixia and Spirent.
• Deep expertise in system-level and end-to-end validation.
• Experience with multi-feature, longevity, resiliency, interoperability, scale, and performance testing.
• Experience with fault injection and recovery validation.
• Expertise in root-cause analysis and complex defect investigation.
• Advanced troubleshooting skills across multiple software and infrastructure layers.
• Demonstrated history of leading significant technical initiatives with measurable business impact.
• Proven ability to influence engineering decisions, architecture, and strategic direction.
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional technical initiatives.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced networking expertise in Layer 2, Layer 3, TCP/IP, routing, MPLS, EVPN, and data center technologies.
• Experience with network operating systems, cloud infrastructure, observability platforms, and distributed architectures.
• Working knowledge of JUNOS.
• Industry certifications such as JNCIE, CCIE, or equivalent.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering tools for automation development, test generation, diagnostics, failure analysis, and productivity improvements.
• Track record of innovation resulting in patents, publications, standards contributions, or architectural leadership.

Responsibilities

• Understand customer deployments, business requirements, architectures, and large-scale operating environments to develop validation strategies.
• Lead validation for strategic customer solutions and complex networking deployments.
• Collaborate with customers and field, architecture, sales engineering, and services teams to validate real-world solutions and operational readiness.
• Participate in and influence technical design workshops, architecture reviews, and strategic planning to improve reliability, scalability, observability, and serviceability.
• Translate customer requirements into repeatable, solution-focused validation frameworks.
• Present technical findings, risk assessments, quality recommendations, and executive-level updates to customers and internal stakeholders.
• Drive cross-functional initiatives that improve customer outcomes and product quality.
• Define and drive automation strategy across products, programs, and engineering teams.
• Architect, develop, and evolve scalable automation frameworks for functional, integration, system, resiliency, scale, performance, and solution validation.
• Establish best practices and standards for continuous validation through CI/CD pipelines.
• Advance automation infrastructure, tooling, and AI-assisted engineering practices.
• Promote organization-wide quality engineering methods that improve time to market and engineering productivity.
• Identify opportunities to simplify validation workflows and reduce operational costs through automation.
• Lead validation of distributed, multi-component software and networking platforms at scale.
• Execute and automate regression, longevity, fault-injection, recovery, scalability, interoperability, and performance testing.
• Use logs, metrics, traces, telemetry, observability platforms, and diagnostic frameworks to troubleshoot complex failures.
• Lead root-cause investigations across teams and technology domains, distinguishing product defects from infrastructure, automation, and environmental issues.
• Influence architecture and design to improve testability, diagnosability, and operational excellence.
• Provide technical leadership for strategic initiatives, major releases, and architectural programs.
• Serve as a recognized authority in solution validation, automation, and quality engineering, and align cross-functional engineering teams around quality objectives.
• Promote quality-first engineering practices throughout the development lifecycle.
• Mentor engineers through technical guidance, reviews, coaching, and knowledge sharing.
• Contribute to innovation through patents, white papers, standards participation, publications, and architectural proposals.
• Build long-term technical capabilities that create recurring business value and customer impact.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits supporting physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing for employees and their loved ones.
• Programs supporting career development and professional growth.

What This Job Offers

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