Principal Engineer, Developer Experience (DevEx)

Skills

About the Role

You will shape and drive a holistic developer experience strategy across the organization, operating across both Core Developer Experience (inner loop) — local development, internal tooling, and productivity — and Cloud/Platform DX (outer loop) — CI/CD and production systems. You'll work closely with the Head of Developer Productivity & Experience and other platform teams to define direction, priorities, and long-term strategy. You'll establish a clear system of developer productivity metrics and engineering insights so decisions are data-informed and improvements scale with the organization. A key part of your role will be driving the transformation of the SDLC through AI, identifying where it can fundamentally change how software is built, tested, and operated, and leading its adoption to deliver step-change improvements in developer productivity and system reliability. This includes integrating AI deeply into day-to-day workflows while establishing the standards, guardrails, and engineering practices needed to scale its use safely and consistently.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in DevEx, Platform Engineering, and large-scale engineering systems
• Deep systems and operational thinking, grounded in a strong software engineering background
• Proven track record of defining and driving cross-organizational technical strategy
• Experience working across multiple domains (e.g., platform, cloud, CI/CD, developer tooling)
• Strong experience with internal developer platforms (IDP) and enabling self-service ecosystems
• Deep understanding of developer productivity, metrics, and engineering insights (e.g., DORA, DX)
• Experience improving CI/CD systems for reliability, speed, and predictability at scale
• Demonstrated ability to align multiple teams and stakeholders without direct authority
• Strong systems thinking with the ability to balance local needs vs. global optimization
• Recent experience driving or adopting AI-enabled development workflows across the SDLC
• Excellent communication and influencing skills across engineering and leadership levels
• Experience with cloud-native architectures and Kubernetes-based platforms
• Familiarity with progressive delivery (feature flags, canary releases)
• Familiarity with frontend platforms or microfrontend architectures (Nice to Have)
• EST or UK timezone for closer overlap with direct team members (Nice to Have)

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the DevEx strategy across the org in partnership with engineering leadership
• Align and connect efforts across Core DX (inner loop) and Cloud/Platform DX (outer loop)
• Ensure a holistic approach to DevEx, avoiding local optimizations and fragmentation
• Identify and drive improvements across the end-to-end developer journey
• Establish and standardize developer productivity metrics and engineering insights (e.g., DORA, DX)
• Guide the evolution of internal developer platforms (IDP) and self-service capabilities across teams
• Drive consistency and reliability in CI/CD systems, ensuring fast and predictable delivery workflows
• Lead the adoption of AI-enabled SDLC practices across teams, enabling safe experimentation
• Partner with engineering, SRE, and platform teams to influence direction without direct ownership
• Act as a technical leader and mentor, raising the bar for DevEx thinking and execution