Principal Software Engineer (Distributed Systems)

Join Alteryx as a Principal Software Engineer specializing in Distributed Systems. In this role, you will drive and own the software architecture for our core platform, collaborating closely with engineering leads, product owners, and infrastructure teams. You will design, evolve, and enforce architectural standards, lead cross-cutting initiatives, and mentor other engineers. This position requires a strong background in large-scale, distributed systems and the ability to make tough technical decisions with minimal guidance.

• Conduire, examiner et posséder l'architecture logicielle de la plateforme principale, en veillant à la qualité, à la cohérence et à la maintenabilité des décisions architecturales.
• Définir, faire évoluer et posséder la vision architecturale et les feuilles de route pour les principaux domaines de la plateforme, en menant des initiatives transversales.
• Mentorer et coacher les architectes, les ingénieurs seniors et guider les équipes à travers les changements architecturaux.
• Ability to conduct performance analysis, capacity planning, scaling, fault tolerance strategies
• Strong judgment about when to optimize vs. when to simplify
• Proven track record of designing and operating large-scale, distributed systems in a production environment
• Experience with message/event systems (e.g. Kafka or similar), queueing, streaming architectures
• Deep hands-on experience with orchestration, scheduler systems, job pipelines, or workflow engines
• Experience: ~10+ (or more) years of software engineering experience, with at least 3–5 years in senior architect or principal-level roles (or equivalent)
• Experience with observability (metrics, tracing, logging) and designing systems for operability and failure modes
• Ability to function autonomously, make decisions in ambiguity, drive consensus across teams, and adopt/evict technologies as needed
• Strong skills in API design, data modeling, integration patterns, error handling, consistency
• Strong knowledge of containerization, Kubernetes, sidecar patterns, service meshes, proxies, etc
• Familiarity with in-memory data stores and caching (e.g. Redis or equivalents)
• Excellent communication skills—able to articulate tradeoffs, convince stakeholders, write design docs, lead design reviews
• Strong proficiency in one or more of: Java / JVM ecosystem, Python, Node.js, or equivalent high-level backend languages
• Familiarity with high-scale cloud deployments (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure-as-code is a plus
• Understanding or experience in split-plane architectures (control plane / data plane separation) is highly desirable
• Pragmatic: balancing ideal architecture with business realities and timelines
• Bias for action: you move forward, prototype, iterate, course-correct
• Strong problem-solving mindset and good intuition about tradeoffs under constraints
• Ability to see the forest and the trees: high-level architectural vision + detailed component thinking
• Self-starter and independent: you’ll take ownership with minimal direction
• Collaborative: able to work across teams, mentor, negotiate constraints
• Find yourself checking a lot of these boxes but doubting whether you should apply? At Alteryx, we support a growth mindset for our associates through all stages of their careers
• If you meet some of the requirements and you share our values, we encourage you to apply