Principal Software Engineer

PayPal is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for its Chennai, India location. This role involves architecting and leading the development of complex backend systems, driving innovation, and mentoring a team of software engineers. You will set the technology roadmap for a significant business domain, handle ambiguous situations with creativity, and ensure the technical success of the domain. The ideal candidate will possess a strategic vision, take initiative to realize it, and lead other technical leaders across organizations. This position requires increasing the results and effectiveness of software engineers within a large domain. You will have wide latitude in determining objectives and approaches, and take initiative to achieve results by appraising existing ways of working and determining directional changes for improved outcomes. Using discovery and exploratory research, you will make successful decisions, identify themes and trends spanning projects and teams, and find broadly impactful opportunities for improvement. Your role will adapt to the need, selecting the most effective means of realizing technical goals. You will use delegation and expectation-setting to steer more than what one person can achieve directly and mentor others to propagate technical influence and enhance organizational performance. Proficiency in recognizing true root causes when existing solutions or processes limit success is essential. You will be expert at envisioning and articulating technical solutions that address business needs, are practically achievable, and sufficiently inspire decision-makers to influence investment choices. You will collaborate with peers in the Backend Engineering chapter on platform improvements, increasing learning opportunities, and creating avenues for growth in a supportive environment.

Minimum Qualifications:

• 15 years of relevant work experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field with 15+ years of experience in backend development.
• Master's degree in computer science or related field with 15+ years of experience in backend development.
• Proficiency in Java technologies.
• Experience with File Systems, server architectures, and distributed systems.
• Strong experience with distributed systems and microservices.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor teams.
• Experience with Agile methodology, large-scale, high-performance systems.
• Knowledge of the payment processing industry and relevant regulations.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Contributions to open-source projects.