Remote opportunity at
SmartsheetPrincipal Software Engineer, Core Experiences (Remote Eligible)
Smartsheet helps teams manage work and is now bringing AI agents into those teams. The Core Experiences group is responsible for the platform and client-side code…
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About This Role
Smartsheet helps teams manage work and is now bringing AI agents into those teams. The Core Experiences group is responsible for the platform and client-side code behind the sheets, reports and dashboards that people open every day, along with one of the company's most valuable collections of customer work data. The role can sit in the Bellevue, Washington office or be performed remotely from any US location where Smartsheet is…
Job Description
Smartsheet helps teams manage work and is now bringing AI agents into those teams. The Core Experiences group is responsible for the platform and client-side code behind the sheets, reports and dashboards that people open every day, along with one of the company's most valuable collections of customer work data. The role can sit in the Bellevue, Washington office or be performed remotely from any US location where Smartsheet is registered as an employer.
The core problem is designing how sheet data gets kept, layered, delivered and transferred between transactional databases and a lakehouse, while meeting the needs of both live collaborators and AI agents working at machine scale. The principal engineer designs that data platform, covering retention, schema evolution, asynchronous access and consistency guarantees. The work includes leading migrations of petabyte-scale production data with phased cutovers and rollback paths, planning efforts that span several quarters, writing RFCs and standards that teams follow, and setting patterns for integrating AI into complex systems. The engineer stays hands-on with Java on AWS and Kubernetes, reviews code, joins on-call rotations and leads major incident response.
Candidates should have more than ten years building systems that scale and respond quickly, with several years at Principal or Staff level, and production Java or Kotlin skills. Hands-on experience with asynchronous distributed systems, very large production datastores, and delivering difficult projects across multiple teams is required. Exposure to Databricks, Snowflake or Apache Iceberg, Kafka or Kinesis, and data access for AI agents is a nice-to-have. The US base salary range is $205,000 to $275,000, with an incentive opportunity.
Responsibilities
- Design the full lifecycle of sheet data across transactional stores and the lakehouse, including tiering, retention and schema changes
- Build services and APIs that support both real-time collaboration and high-volume agent access
- Find major technical risks and opportunities across Core Views and its dependencies, then prototype them
- Run petabyte-scale migrations with no customer impact, using backfills, reconciliation and rollbacks
- Break multi-quarter initiatives into phased plans with milestones and honest risk reporting
- Bring the Product group together with the data, AI and infrastructure platform teams on one plan
- Publish architecture decisions and standards that other groups adopt
- Set patterns and safeguards for AI in complex systems and engineering workflows
- Join on-call and lead the toughest production incidents
Requirements
- Ten-plus years building systems that scale widely, stay available and respond with low latency, including several years at Principal or Staff level
- Production-quality Java or Kotlin
- Experience designing and running asynchronous, message-based systems on Amazon Web Services or similar cloud infrastructure
- Experience owning systems built on very large relational or distributed databases
- A track record of carrying complex technical work from prototype to production across teams
- Degree in computing, engineering or a closely related discipline, or equivalent industry experience
- Legal authorization to work in the US on an ongoing basis
Qualifications
- Lakehouse experience on platforms like Databricks, Snowflake or Apache Iceberg
- Streaming platforms like Kafka or Kinesis
- Creating data interfaces that agents can call, for example MCP servers or APIs built for agents
- Real-time collaborative application development
Core Skills
Benefits
- Employer-paid premiums for medical, vision and dental plans for full-time staff
- 401(k) matching of half of contributions up to the first 6 percent of eligible pay
- Monthly stipend for work and productivity expenses
- Flexible time away plus sick time off
- Company-paid life insurance and short- and long-term disability coverage
- 12 paid holidays a year, parental leave of as much as 24 weeks and a paid volunteer day
- Udemy course access and professional growth support
- A counseling membership, nearby retail discounts and a personal Smartsheet account
- Teleworking from registered US locations for eligible roles
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
Is this role remote?
Yes, it can be done remotely from any registered US location, or from the Bellevue, Washington office.
What is the base salary?
The US base salary range is $205,000 to $275,000 USD, and the role is also eligible for an incentive opportunity.
What experience is required?
More than ten years of building highly scalable systems is needed, including time at Principal or Staff level.
Is work authorization required?
Yes, candidates must be legally allowed to work in the US over the long term.
Sample Interview Questions
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