Principal Engineer

Job Description

About this role:

Wells Fargo is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the evolution of its infrastructure provisioning and automation ecosystem. This role is ideal for a strategic technical leader who excels in architecting scalable solutions, setting direction, and influencing engineering culture. The Principal Engineer will drive automation, mentor engineers, and collaborate across teams to deliver robust, self-service platform capabilities aligned with the company’s technical vision.

In this role, you’ll be expected to anticipate obstacles, manage escalations, and make informed tradeoffs that balance business needs with technical constraints. You’ll break down complex projects into actionable tasks, create functional specifications, and ensure timely delivery. Success requires strong decision-making, the ability to prioritize effectively, and the trust of stakeholders and end users.

In this role, you will:

• Lead the design and implementation of target state architecture for infrastructure automation, setting standards and patterns for the organization.
• Architect and oversee development of reusable, modular Infrastructure as Code (IaC) components using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, and Crossplane.
• Define and drive adoption of GitOps driven workflows for automated provisioning, deployment, and lifecycle management of cloud infrastructure.
• Build and scale self-service platform capabilities, empowering developers to manage infrastructure independently through intuitive interfaces and APIs.
• Integrate infrastructure automation with tools such as ArgoCD, Kubernetes, and CI/CD platforms (Tekton, GitHub Actions), streamlining developer experience.
• Review and approve new infrastructure standards, patterns, and practices, ensuring alignment with security, scalability, and reliability goals.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Product Owners, and Principal Engineers to influence product roadmaps and drive adoption of platform engineering solutions.
• Lead support for critical applications and customer journeys, including incident resolution, postmortems, and operational metrics automation (SLO/SLI adherence, error budgets).
• Advise on implementation design, providing strategic direction and expertise to leadership on innovative business solutions.
• Own the full software development lifecycle for platform engineering initiatives, from concept to deployment.
• Stay current on emerging trends in AI, software development, and system architecture, recommending innovations and best practices.
• Mentor and coach engineers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and engineering excellence.
• Contribute to internal forums and communities of practice, advocating for software engineering best practices, including test driven development (TDD) and continuous delivery.

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of Engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated through one or a combination of the following: work experience, training, military experience, education

  7+ years of Technology Infrastructure Engineering and Solutions experience.
• 7+ years experience in software development and delivery. In-depth knowledge of enterprise infrastructure technologies, including virtualization, networking, storage, and security. 
• 5+ years supporting enterprise-level complex applications and platforms.
• 5+ years of experience with Terraform, Ansible, Crossplane, or similar IaC tools.
• 5+ years of engineering and support experience on Linux/Unix and Windows servers.

Desired Qualifications:

• 5+ years designing and building observability solutions (Splunk, Grafana, Elastic, AppDynamics, Prometheus).
• 3+ years of experience with GitOps principles and tools (ArgoCD, Tekton, GitHub Actions).
• 3+ years of experience designing and consuming RESTful APIs (Golang, Python) and integrating infrastructure automation into platform services.
• 3+ years of experience with cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• 2+ years of experience with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and hybrid cloud platforms.
• Expertise in designing complex, distributed, and scalable enterprise level applications.
• Familiarity with developer portals (e.g., Backstage) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with service mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Linkerd).
• Exposure to image management tools like Packer or Image Builder.
• Background in building platform engineering solutions supporting cloud-native development and service ownership.
• Strong technical communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• A developer-first mindset with a passion for reducing friction and improving engineering productivity.

Job Expectations:

This position requires the ability to work in an in-office hybrid environment.

This position is not available for Visa sponsorship

This position does not have relocation allowance.

Pay Range

Reflected is the base pay range offered for this position. Pay may vary depending on factors including but not limited to achievements, skills, experience, or work location. The range listed is just one component of the compensation package offered to candidates.

Benefits

Wells Fargo provides eligible employees with a comprehensive set of benefits, many of which are listed below. Visit Benefits - Wells Fargo Jobs for an overview of the following benefit plans and programs offered to employees.

• Health benefits
• 401(k) Plan
• Paid time off
• Disability benefits
• Life insurance, critical illness insurance, and accident insurance
• Parental leave
• Critical caregiving leave
• Discounts and savings
• Commuter benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• Scholarships for dependent children
• Adoption reimbursement

Posting End Date:

* Job posting may come down early due to volume of applicants.

We Value Equal Opportunity

Wells Fargo is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other legally protected characteristic.

Employees support our focus on building strong customer relationships balanced with a strong risk mitigating and compliance-driven culture which firmly establishes those disciplines as critical to the success of our customers and company. They are accountable for execution of all applicable risk programs (Credit, Market, Financial Crimes, Operational, Regulatory Compliance), which includes effectively following and adhering to applicable Wells Fargo policies and procedures, appropriately fulfilling risk and compliance obligations, timely and effective escalation and remediation of issues, and making sound risk decisions. There is emphasis on proactive monitoring, governance, risk identification and escalation, as well as making sound risk decisions commensurate with the business unit’s risk appetite and all risk and compliance program requirements.

Applicants with Disabilities

To request a medical accommodation during the application or interview process, visit Disability Inclusion at Wells Fargo .

Drug and Alcohol Policy

Wells Fargo maintains a drug free workplace. Please see our Drug and Alcohol Policy to learn more.

Wells Fargo Recruitment and Hiring Requirements:

a. Third-Party recordings are prohibited unless authorized by Wells Fargo.

b. Wells Fargo requires you to directly represent your own experiences during the recruiting and hiring process.