Principal Software Engineer
Content + Source + Freshness • 11 Dec 2025 • 95% confidence
Offer value
Attractive for those seeking to influence software delivery methods, with competitive compensation and comprehensive benefit offerings.
- Competitive compensation aligned with industry standards.
- Influence in technical direction and software delivery innovations.
- Roles in a rapidly scaling environment at Harness.
Pros
- Competitive compensation package reflecting industry standards.
- Significant influence over technical direction and product development.
- Opportunity to work within a rapidly scaling company with innovative solutions.
Cons
- High expectations could lead to potential pressure on performance.
- Role complexity may not suit everyone, requiring top-level technical expertise.
- May require relocation or commutation to Bangalore office.
Who it's for
Senior • Hybrid / on-site flexibility
Good fit
- Senior software engineers or technical leads.
- Individuals with a strong background in software delivery.
- Candidates interested in leading high-impact projects.
Not recommended for
- Developers with minimal experience in leading projects.
- Those uncomfortable with rapid changes in technology.
- Candidates seeking fully remote employment opportunities.
Motivation fit
Key skills
About the job
The Harness Engineering team is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead complex cross platform initiatives and lead technical projects across geographies. Principal Engineers are recognized experts in Harness’ technology domain, and represent the senior technical leadership within their organization. Principal Engineers carry the responsibility of steering the course for their organizational segment, partnering with senior leadership, prioritizing initiatives to achieve a range of objectives.
Principal Engineers at Harness
Poses a careful blend of domain specific engineering expertise and world class technical leadership. There are a number of competencies that a Principal Engineer must display.
- Technical Competencies
- In depth tactical knowledge of the domain, yet broad experience and skill sets
- Domain and product expert when representing harness with customers and internal teams alike.
- Seamlessly include, promote and balance cross functional inputs from Product, Design, Enablement
- Break down complex technical requirements to motivate and lead cross-functional teams
- Consider the execution needed today, into the future, make investments aligned with broader impact
- Leadership Competencies
- Demonstrable experience in executing on one, or multiple roadmap through working with others, finding the ROI in organized efforts
- Subject matter and domain expertise applied to develop others internal and external to Harness
- In depth understanding of product features and roadmaps, how customers engage with the product in your space
- Clear displays of improving execution via process optimization, or other means
- Natural advisor to leadership on resourcing constraints, efficiencies.
- Practice and evangelize Harness core values
- Participate and contribute to Architecture Committees, Hiring Committees, and others that are formed to solve issues across the org, and company
Responsibilities
- Coordinates and proposes collaborative efforts across multiple teams in engineering, guiding team members to make well-informed decisions that align with the strategic plans of the respective sub-department.
- Proactively seeks to prevent redundant efforts, taking existing assets and hardening them for broad re-usability
- Apply your expertise in a mentorship capacity, to others in the organization. Champion a culture of improvement.
- Participate in resource planning, project mapping, and success criteria for large engineering initiatives
- Responds swiftly to the needs of today. Plan diligently for the needs of tomorrow
- Solve the most difficult technical problems at Harness.
- Interfaces with senior engineering leadership on project deliverables and planning. Create visibility and presents to executives when needed
- Lead and inspire innovation at the highest order across Harness’ portfolio of products and services
- Propose POCs and optimizations regularly
- Align the goals of module sub-teams with the overall goals of Harness Engineering
- Gather escalations from your project team, remove blockers, enable your project team, broker solutions with cross functional engineering leadership
- Represent your project to external customers, partners or other stakeholders.
- You are the Harness SME for most, if not all domains in your area of expertise
Requirements
- 10+ years of non-internship professional software development experience
- Knowledge of object-oriented design, data structures, and algorithms
- Deep hands-on technical expertise in at least one major technical area: Modern Software Delivery, building complex distributed systems
- Demonstrable experience in advanced Java, Golang, or comparable programing languages.
- Depth of experience in distributed systems
- Advanced Computer Science degree, or equivalent experience.
Work Location
This position is a hybrid role that will require the person to work from our Bangalore Office 3 days a week.
What You Will Have at Harness
- Experience building a transformative product
- End-to-end ownership of your projects
- Competitive salary
- Comprehensive healthcare benefit
- Flexible work schedule
- Quarterly Harness TGIF-Off / 4 days
- Paid Time Off and Parental Leave
- Monthly, quarterly, and annual social and team building events
- Monthly internet reimbursement
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
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- Jyoti Bansal, Harness | theCUBEd Awards
- Eight years after selling AppDynamics to Cisco, Jyoti Bansal is pursuing an unusual merger
- Harness snags Split.io, as it goes all in on feature flags and experiments
- Exclusive: Jyoti Bansal-led Harness has raised $150 million in debt financing
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers
We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers.
Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations.
If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at security@harness.io. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission’s website (https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams), or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.
