Principal Engineer - Search Systems

Job Requisition ID #

Principal Software Developer (Hybrid) - Product Data 

Position Overview 

Autodesk is looking for a Principal Software Developer to join the Autodesk  

Platform Services Data Models Team

Are you passionate about developing cutting-edge technology that makes a real difference? Do you thrive in dynamic environments, enjoy tackling complex problems, and want to be part of a team committed to innovation? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you! Join Autodesk's dynamic, high-performing team in Toronto as we continue to build powerful, exabyte-scale cloud data platform components that drive our products. 

The team delivers high-value, exabyte-scale, and cloud data platform components powering desktop, mobile, and web products. This enables our product teams to create cohesive in-product data experiences, our partners to integrate and expand our data, and our end-users to work with their data across all Autodesk products. You will report to the Software Development Manager based in Canada, and the role is hybrid based in Toronto. 

This is an exciting opportunity to help evolve the engineering discipline and contribute to an organization committed to continuous improvement. You will be a central part of the team that not only leverages and develops cutting-edge AI technologies and approaches but also integrates these AI tools into our tech stack to enhance the value we provide to our customers. By incorporating AI-driven solutions, our team creates amazing achievements, enabling real-time, data-centric experiences at scale, and impacting everyone who imagines, designs, and makes our world. Join us to make anything! 

Responsibilities 

• Direct Technical Initiatives: Own and lead team-level technical direction for high-stakes initiatives involving multi-method and multi-modal searching across distributed exabyte-scale data graphs. 

• Align Technical Direction with Business Goals: Collaborate with stakeholders, act as a technical product owner, and balance requirements from multiple sources. 

• Propose Solutions: Identify and propose solutions that solve problems and deliver value. 

• Ensure Feasibility: Account for end-to-end feasibility, including development timelines, complexity, quality, risk, total cost of delivery, maintainability, flexibility, operational, and support needs. 

• Lead Large-Scale Projects: Exhibit steadfast leadership and make substantial contributions to large-scale, intricate projects involving multiple engineers and cross-functional teams. 

• Enhance Practices and Quality: Raise the bar by removing obstacles, enhancing practices and quality, acting as a multiplier for the team, offering mentorship, guidance, and support. 

• Influence Across Teams: Demonstrate impact and influence across teams outside of the direct organization. 

• Drive Technical Discussions: Lead technical discussions across the organization, driving results and business outcomes. 

• Lead Incident Management: Demonstrate strong leadership in incident calls, driving investigation, timely resolution, and improvements required for each incident. 

Minimum Qualifications 

• Educational Background: Graduate or Postgraduate degree in Computer Science Engineering or related technical fields. 

• Extensive Experience: 8+ years of software design, development, or consulting experience in cloud systems or web services, with at least 3 years in a leadership role. 

• Successful Cloud Product Delivery: Lead position in the successful delivery of a commercial cloud product. 

• Incident Response Expertise: Proven capability to lead incident response, drive root cause analysis, and implement preventive measures. 

• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to lead technical discussions and present complex ideas to diverse audiences. 

• Understanding of Business Drivers: Ability to articulate business drivers clearly. 

• Technical Mentorship: Proven ability to mentor and develop technical talent within the organization. 

• Cloud Systems and Services: Experience with building scalable systems and services in AWS or other cloud providers. 

• Database Experience: Experience with a variety of databases and database design principles at cloud scale (vector, graph, relational, columnar, document, object, multi-model, etc.). 

• Advanced Searching Techniques: Readiness to take on multi-modal semantic searching with AI, LLMs, machine learning, MCP, RAG, CAG. 

• Distributed Query Planning: Familiarity with database query planning, especially distributed, at large scale. 

• GraphQL API Development: Native GraphQL API development experience with look-ahead fetching. 

• Message Queues: Experience working with message queues (e.g., Kafka). 

• SDLC and Agile Methodologies: Experience with software development lifecycle (SDLC) processes, tools, and Agile methodologies. 

• Java Programming: Excellent hands-on Java programming skills and exposure to Spring Boot. Additional programming languages welcome. 

• Search Technologies: Familiarity with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch. 

• Design Patterns: High expertise in object-oriented design patterns. 

• CI/CD Expertise: Experience with CI/CD concepts and working with a deployment pipeline such as Jenkins. 

Join Autodesk, where your contributions help those who imagine, design, and make a difference in our world. Embrace the challenge and make anything! 

Apply now if you are up for the adventure! 

Learn More

About Autodesk

Welcome to Autodesk! Amazing things are created every day with our software – from the greenest buildings and cleanest cars to the smartest factories and biggest hit movies. We help innovators turn their ideas into reality, transforming not only how things are made, but what can be made.

We take great pride in our culture here at Autodesk – it’s at the core of everything we do. Our culture guides the way we work and treat each other, informs how we connect with customers and partners, and defines how we show up in the world.

When you’re an Autodesker, you can do meaningful work that helps build a better world designed and made for all. Ready to shape the world and your future? Join us!

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